Take On Me
by pisces97
Summary: Years later, and after stitching the world back together, Eve Winchester has nothing left of herself to call 'whole'. Being the only of her kind has its dues and now, she is permanently injured...But her story is far from over. Mr. Holmes has lock-picked his way into her life. One would ask why. But you should really ask yourself is how he came to be on the side of the angels...
1. prologue

Prologue:

Eve Winchester. Now there's a name for the history books. Sadly, it's also a name you will never find in one, and behind which stands a woman with incredible and unrivaled power—of which, she hasn't even found the limit. It was with this power that she nearly destroyed herself and her world, and why she is now taking leave from Hunting with her brothers and only family in the world. Castiel and Sam and Dean Winchester never wanted her to leave. They were set on helping her by themselves and work at it together like a family should. But even family needs a break.

What Eve Winchester didn't see coming was a man in a long coat claiming to be the first and only consulting detective with incredible deducing abilities and his companion, the army doctor with a huge heart. Nor did she see coming the lesson to be learned. She had forgotten humans are just as capable of being monsters as the real deal. And the universe thought a reality check was in order.

Now, the famous Sherlock Holmes had a thing or two to learn himself. One, humans are not alone in this world. The second and final being: Don't underestimate your enemies, and certainly never a woman in a leather jacket. After all, I thought it was high-time we had an explanation as to why Sherlock Holmes was on the side of the angels…

****Hello Readers! Welcome to my newest story! :) As always, any recognizable characters, locations, etc... belong to their respective owners. And as a heads-up, this is a crossover AND a continuation of my last story (as to how Eve became a Winchester) and if you are interested. It is located on my page and is titled "Journey From God". Anyway, here we go. Onward!****


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One:

_Running. The crunch of dead leaves and twigs underfoot. Branches swiping at her face and tearing at her hair. Trickles of blood falling from her cuts. Arms pumping and heart hammering out of her chest, there was only one thing on her mind._

My boys.

_She ran long and hard, through the dense woodlands. The star spangled night sky poking through the top of the canopy overhead was the only thing to let her know she wasn't completely encased by trees. Without a light, she labored, stumbling over roots, scraping her knees when she accidentally knocked herself to the ground. Her lip bled—probably from hitting a tree branch—and her face stung, but she kept going strong, jumping over underbrush and whacking branches she could see in the cascading darkness out of her way. The shadows threatened to swallow her whole. The cold air made her skin numb and her eyes sting._

_ She heard a yell, and another, and another. Struggling. Fighting._

_ Eve thought she might be too late to save the people she held most dear. Tears of unbridled fear flew from the corners of her eyes and vanished in the air behind her. Her pupils darted across the darkness, desperately searching for wherever they might be. If she yelled out for them, she'd endanger all of them even more._

_ Her chest felt knotted and pained and her panting was too loud in her ears, but she swore she heard another shout and a dull thud. Yes, there was another! To the left! She swerved in that direction and brought her arms in an X to cover her face as she broke through some evergreen trees._

_ She jumped right into the fray._

_ The small clearing deep within this forest was flooded with demons. The only opposition was Eve herself, the angels, Castiel and Nathaniel, and Sam and Dean Winchester. From all angles, good was hounded by evil._

_ Eve ducked, reaching in her jacket as a demon's armed hand swung just above her head. She turned around, flinging holy water back at the demon as she charged forward. The demon was temporarily sidetracked by the infliction of holy water. Put out of action by Nathaniel, the demon dropped and was replaced by three more. Good was overcome._

_ Eve ran through the crowd, smiting any demon in her way, and was chased by more, to get to her brothers. Dean and Sam were ahead of her. Castiel was somewhere off the right, judging by the amount of light, smiting light, blazing in and fading out as another demon was defeated._

_ She saw Sam. His head was bleeding just above his eyebrow, on his temple, and his right cheek was painted in red. Eyes burning hotter than the flames of hell itself, he plunged the demon knife deep into a demon's abdomen, and ripped it out of her, looking fierce as a warrior when she dropped. The demon within its vessel blinked out of industry and Sam was attacked by two more demons. He threw them every which way, and sliced at them, not delaying to strike again when the demons had him on the ground._

_ Dean had his back to Sam, caught in a brawl with two demons himself. He had two angel blades—one in each hand—and sliced at the demons ganging up on him. His jacket flapped as he whirled in a circle, stabbing a demon in the back and then using him as a shield to deflect a spell from another. He shoved the dead demon off him, knocking another to its knees. In the same moment, Dean bent down to cut the head off that demon. He was then tackled from the side by another demon, seemingly coming from nowhere, and the two battled it out on the ground._

_ Eve tried to reach them. She needed to save her family and her friend, Nathaniel. But no matter how clear her path to them appeared, demons would obstruct it and she would be lured into more fights. _

_Eve was met with Nathaniel. He joined by her side without a word. A comrade in battle._

_She flung holy water over the heads of a group of three. When they turned on her, Nathaniel smited one on the head, his arm extended, and Eve summoned her power. Light bloomed from her chest. It was pure and blinding, and it struck the other two demons in the chest, killing them on impact. In the next instant, Eve pivoted and swung her arm at a demon about to attack Nathaniel. A ribbon of her exemplary power blasted from her palm and the demon was thrown off its feet, over the heads of more demons brawling their unmatched opponents. The demon collided with a tree, fell downward, and got entangled in its branches._

_Nathaniel gave Eve a nod of thanks before throwing himself back into the war._

_Somewhere behind her, Dean yelled out. Sam screamed, "_Dean!_"_

_Eve swung around and her terrified scream peeled through the night, rattling the forest's branches and shaking its leaves. Birds flew up into the night, shrieking profanity._

_Dean hit the ground too quickly. But then he didn't. Eve saw it as if one frame at a time. He flew back-first into the trunk of a tree, and a demon's mitt-like hand followed shortly after, holding Dean in place by his neck. The demon smiled as Dean cursed him and tried prying the demon's hands off him. Dean looked at him with nothing but a loathing deep-rooted into his soul. _

_The demon's free hand shot back in that moment, and all too quickly, the demon let go. Dean dropped to his knees, hunched over and blinking at his stomach. He fell onto his elbow and pulled a blade out of his stomach. He then let himself sink all the way to the ground._

_This was when Sam screamed. And this was when Eve screamed._

_Sam was dazed for a millisecond, not really believing what he just saw as as it was actually happening. Then, as if gaining the strength of a hundred men, he killed off the demons encircling him. He stabbed and sliced and killed ferociously on his way to Dean._

_Suddenly, Eve was prisoner to a blunt crack of something large against the back of her skull. She hit the ground with her shoulder and rolled on her back, dazed and momentarily immobile. In the next second, a demon descended on her and lit a fire in her bones. She shrieked, burdened with this terrible agony shooting through every sensitive part of her. Eve let the feeling of her chest opening consume her as she clawed at the demon. Grabbing its arm, a light sprang from the demon's eye sockets and mouth. Eve kicked the dead monstrosity off her and rolled onto her stomach, searching again for Dean and Sam and Castiel._

_Somehow, the number of demons had depleted significantly. Surely, they hadn't killed that many a number of them. Oh, but they had._

_Eve's head pounded and her vision was screwy. At last she saw Sam. He was kneeling over Dean, holding him in his arms as he cried and said his name. He was begging Dean to stay with him._

_A demon approached Sam from behind. A gun was in his hand. Oblivious to everything outside his brother, Sam did not notice._

_Eve's voice sounded alien when she screamed, "_Sam!_" The demon shot and suddenly, Sam was on the ground next to his dying brother._

"No!_" It was a long and unbroken note. Something from a nightmare, the scream was in vain. She struggled to get to her feet; the sides of her boots slid on loose dirt and her hands dug into earth. The pain and despair that entered her heart was like a wave crashing against the hull of a ship in the middle of a storm. It was an insoluble pain. It was ceaseless. Pieces of her were splintering away in the ages it took for her to stand._

_This sudden loss was overshadowed profusely in the next moment by anger. Anger known to very, very few. Her power swirled. It swelled, treacherous and devastating inside her. She was a nuclear bomb about to desecrate every thing in a hundred mile radius._

"_Whoa, whoa, whoa, there darling." A demon—no, _the _demon stood behind the motionless bodies of Sam and Dean._

_Eve took a furious step forward, fist clenched. "_You._" _

"_Surprise!" The demon struck a pose, putting a foot on Sam to taunt her even further._

"_You get the hell of him or I'll do things so unimaginable to you, you'll be begging I send you to hell instead."_

"_Now, now," the demon stuck a finger in its mouth, picking its teeth, "Let's save the kinky bits for later. We wouldn't want you doing anything you regret. I just wanted to come say hi and tell you that I've got a proposition for you."_

_Eve narrowed her eyes. _

_ The demon unclasped its hands to give a careless wave. "So _hi. _I've got a proposition for you." _

_ If only looks could kill. She was _the _force to be reckoned with and this scum wanted to play games._

_ The demon motioned for her to come nearer. "Come closer. I promise no strikes will be taken without fair warning."_

_ "Demons don't keep promises."_

_ "Well this one does." The demon nodded to the others who had aligned themselves around Eve, caging her in a circle. At once, black smoke filled the air and floated into the dark sky and the vessels collided with the ground. _

_ Eve then saw Castiel. Three demons had him restrained and out of the play, in a ring of holy fire. Castiel looked at Eve, hopeless and helpless. He was trapped. And so was she._

_ Nathaniel was on the ground, slumped against a tree as if taking a nap. Was he dead?_

_ Eve stepped forward. The demon made sure she had a moment to gaze at the dead faces of her brothers._

_ Dean lay haphazardly on his side with his back to Sam; the two of them were scrunched together, with Sam's left arm under Dean's neck. There was a small wound in Dean's hairline and a bloody slice through the arm of his jacket. But that was the least of it. A hole as big as Eve's fist dug through Dean's middle. Blood pooled in the empty space and onto the ground, weaving like strands of yarn into the dirt and grass. The blood was everywhere, flowing silently and slowly away from Dean. His lifeless eyes stared after the red, like a ghost begging to be brought back to life. His mouth was agape, as if he was going to speak, but the blood coating his teeth and dribbling from his mouth said otherwise._

_ Sam stared up to the sky; an exit wound from the bullet was like a crimson flower covering his heart. Tears intermixed with blood on his frozen face. With his arm around his brother as if he'd just given him a hug, they could have been stargazing only moments before, joking with each other, and talking quietly before Dean drifted off to sleep…But they hadn't. Dean died in his brother's arms, and so heartbroken without his brother, Sam joined him moments later. He couldn't see past Dean. Without Dean there was no Sam._

_ Tears filled Eve's eyes. _They went out together, just like they wanted. _Her heart shattered like glass. If anyone were to touch her now, she would crumple to nothing. Her life, her reason for living was gone. They were at her feet and they were not getting up._

_ The demon cleared its throat. "Now, I know you have a lot on your plate right now but being a softy for this kind of thing, I'll tell you what."_

_ Eve grit her teeth, only barely containing the storm within her._

_ "I can bring back the one and two to your three without a problem. In fact, I actually want to do it because you look absolutely _terrible _without them. But you know how demon deals work. It's a very formal business-y type show."_

_ "What do you want? Ten years, you got it," Eve said._

_ "Oh no," the demon chuckled, stepping nearer Eve. The demon trailed a finger down Eve's cheek, knowing she wouldn't refuse it so long as her family was involved. "I want you."_

_ Seeing the look in Eve's eyes shift, the demon withdrew its hand. "More specifically, I want your mojo. That power you harness, I'm not going to lie, is impressive. It _beat _God Himself. So, give it to me and Dean and Sam walk away unscathed. Good as new. I'll even let Cassie over there go free."_

_ "All you want is my power?"_

_ "Oh come on, don't say it like that. Of course…it will be painful. But then again, so is—"_

_ "I'll do it," Eve said without skipping a beat._

_ "Eve, no!" Castiel shouted. "You can't trust—"_

_ Eve turned, tears trailing silver ribbons down her cheeks. "You would do the same."_

_ "You could die!" Castiel cried, desperately pleading. He knew she was right, but that didn't mean he would admit it._

_ "It's a risk I'm willing to take. Love you, Cas." Eve turned to the demon, shoving Cas' yells out of her mind._

_ "Great," the demon smiled. "Now you know how this bit goes. Time to tear it out of you."_

_ "What? Me?"_

_ "Just remember sweetheart, I know what makes you tick. Stole the manual right after you got rid of Mighty Man, so don't play coy with me. Of course you have to do it."_

_ Eve sucked in a breath. "Bring them back first."_

_ The demon rolled its eyes. Then it snapped its fingers._

_ Dean and Sam coughed and moved. They were alive. Just like that._

_ Eve moved instinctively to them, but the demon held out a hand to keep her from them. "Ah ah ah," the demon said. "Remember I can punch them out like a light if you don't come through."_

_ "Eve?" Sam said. Dean turned to face Sam, checking him over before turning to Eve. Their wounds were magically erased from their skin._

_ "Hey boys," her voice trembled. "I'm so sorry."_

_ "Dean! Stop her!" Castiel bellowed._

_ But before he could, before he even knew what for, Eve's entire body erupted in light. It consumed everything around her, including Sam and Dean, Castiel, the demon, and miles of forestland around them. She was the sun in a world of darkness…_

Eve awoke gasping for air. Sweat clung to every inch of her skin. Her tank top stuck to her and she felt constricted in the thin sheets. She ripped them off her and sat up in bed, putting her head in her hands. And she cried into them, her body quaking as if her soul threatened to dislodge from her body.

Behind her, visible only as a shadow on the wall, were a pair of angel wings—what was left of them. Shaved of most of their feathers, they were now nothing but bone. A hideous, sickly skeleton on the wall was broken and without remedy.

Just outside her room, Sam watched her cry. He'd been standing there the entire time, looking after her and making sure she was okay. He clenched his jaw, his heart aching for her. Eve was haunted by her past and he could do nothing to help her. Silently, he kept her company for a few moments more, before leaving her doorway vacant.

* * *

A few days later, Dean and Sam were just getting back from grabbing dinner in town. They were talking as they climbed the steps down into the Men of Letters shelter, which they now call home.

They came in the main room to see Eve passed out at the end of the table, with her head resting on an open book. Dean gave Sam a look. He then unraveled the paper bag in his hand and opened it close to Eve's nose. When she blinked awake, Dean grinned, "See? I told you the smell of bacon burgers wakes her up."

Sam laughed through his nose.

Dean sat next to Eve. Sam sat on her other side. The food was dished out.

"Find a new job?" Eve asked tiredly.

"No, we didn't." Dean had replied too swiftly.

"Yeah you did," Eve argued, "When are we heading out?"

"Sam and I are leaving as soon as Cas gets here."

"Wait, no. I want to go with you. I'm not a kid anymore, Dean."

"Of course you aren't," Sam said, his voice soothing and understanding. "We just asked him to keep an eye out for you."

"I. Am. Fine. I want to come with you," she said.

Dean gave her a look. "Eve, you look like crap. You need to stay here and focus on healing because _this," _he motioned to all of her, "is a mess."

"I feel fine. I'm just losing sleep," she insisted. There were heavy bags under her eyes. Her collarbones were accented because of malnutrition. Her cheekbones were sharp looking because her cheeks were sunk into her face, and her hair was constantly tangled. She looked twice her age, old and frail, when she was only twenty-five.

"No." Dean shook his head, "No, you're not. You've been through so much in the last couple of years and you aren't getting any better."

"I can take it. I'm scrappy."

"Oh yeah?" Lemme' see your wings."

"Dean," Sam's tone was alarmed and scolding. They both knew how sensitive she was about her wings.

"No," Dean told Sam, his voice rising, "I want to see them. If they've gotten better, she can come with us. If not, she stays, because literally every last thing that has happened to us up to this point revolves around them! It's because of them that she nearly wiped the planet out of the solar system and why we're in this mess now!"

Sam stood quickly, defending Eve. "She was tricked Dean! She was doomed from the very beginning, you know that! Back when we first met her, when her face was busted up, do you remember that? Do you also remember how she saved everyone by _sacrificing _herself, and again for us, when all we did up to that point was shut her out? It was because we had our heads so far up our ass that we couldn't see God had played us as much as He did her! We are to blame just as much, Dean. Not all of this falls on her."

Dean stood up, too. They were about to yell it out, and shout abuse at each other.

Eve stopped them from fighting. A crack broke her voice when she said, "Sam. Sit down."

Sam sat. Dean sat without being told.

"I've been thinking lately," Eve admitted, picking her head up to meet Dean's eyes. "And you're right. I'm not getting better. And I don't think I will, ever, so long as I am around you two."

Sam asked, "What are you saying?"

`Dean furrowed his brow.

"What I'm saying is, I'm going to London."

"London? London, England?" Dean was shocked.

"Yeah. I already bought my ticket, so you can't tell me I can't go. I leave the day after tomorrow."

"The hell you do," Dean sat back in his chair, arms crossed.

"Listen, Dean. I can't sleep hardly because every time I close my eyes, all I see is you and Sam die. All I see is you die," tears entered her eyes and her voice squeaked at the end, "over and over and _over_ and I can't stop it. I just can't. I can't take it anymore, so I have to leave. I have to get away from you for a little while to try to heal on my own."

"How long is a 'little while'?" Sam asked.

"A month or two."

Dean wanted to refuse, judging by the look on his face, but he bit his tongue.

Sam nodded, blinking hard and pursing his lips together.

This was a hard blow for the both of them.

Dean got up from the table. His chair skid loudly across the floor. He took a few steps around the room, digesting what Eve had said. "By yourself? You can't be by yourself. You're still on Hell's Most Wanted. Your head has a price tag on it and who the hell knows where we'll be if they catch you."

Eve got stiffly to her feet. Her joints ached, always, they ached. She stepped over to Dean. "They won't. I will be okay, Dean. I promise."

Dean caved, his face going soft. "Of course you will. But Sam and I need you."

"And that's just how Winchesters say 'I love you'," Eve smiled and Dean kissed her head after hugging her.

Sam joined the pair. "Then I guess we should go scrounge us up some money."

"I won't be able to move the darts anymore," Eve commented sadly. Way back when, when they were short on cash, Sam, Dean, and Eve would crash the local bar and hustle pool and darts. With Eve's telekinetic powers, she directed Dean and Sam's darts to the bulls-eye every time. They would rake in the dough (and sometimes get in deep crap with the big burly guys thinking they were tricking him…they were, but still).

That was when Cas walked into the room. "Sorry, I'm late," he said in his gravelly voice. "We had an emergency meeting in Heaven."

"Oh hey Cas," Dean's face brightened. It was something that only happened when he had a burger in his hands or he just had an epiphany. "We were just talking about you."

Cas halted and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What."

* * *

That night could have played as a going-away party, because the next morning Dean and Sam would be driving up to West Virginia to check out a possible job. They would be gone when Eve drove herself to the airport the next day.

The four of them, Eve, Cas, Sam, and Dean, shared a round table a few feet from the bar. They all had beers in their hand and smiles on their faces. Talking and making merry while the happiness lasted.

"Feel anything yet, Cas?" Eve smiled into the mouth of her beer bottle as she took a gulp.

Cas' eyebrows went up as he took his beer from his lips. "If you mean the intoxicating effects of the alcohol, no I do not. It's not nearly as effective now as it was when I was human. It's depressing."

Sam, Dean, and Eve laughed.

"Well we can take a few shots after we grab a few bucks, huh?" Eve proposed.

"Bribery. Hm," he squinted his eyes at her, the skin crinkling around his eyes. A sly smile slowly crept onto his face.

Eve grinned, knowing exactly what that expression meant. "Come on, Cas. Let's go squeeze 'em for everything they're worth." She grabbed him by his arm excitedly and got to her feet, not waiting for him to follow as she went to challenge an opponent by the dartboard.

Watching as she and Cas left, Sam said, "She'll be okay."

"Yeah, I know she will," Dean told him. "I asked Cas to look out for her."

Sam gave him a look. "She's gonna be pissed when she finds out, you know that right?"

"Even more than when she realizes I activated the GPS on her phone?" Dean took a sip of his cold one.

Sam scoffed, "What is she going to do without you?" A minute later he wryly said, "Especially since you're afraid of planes. If she gets in trouble and Cas isn't around, you have no choice but to let me go and help."

Dean looked away, "Shut up, clown boy."

Sam rolled his eyes, a tiny laugh blowing out of his nose.

Across the dimly lit bar, a man in a patched denim vest, a bleach white Stetson hat, and motorcycle boots took his turn at the dartboard first. He stood back from the board and threw his darts at the target. One landed on the bulls-eye, the other two landed just below on the rings, but it was still a good score.

The man stepped back, scratching his white mustache and fixing his hat. "You talk pretty big talk there Miss, but I'll be damned if you beat me and clean my wallet dry."

Eve gave Cas a smile and then he winked at her. She told mustache man, "Well then, you might need to prepare your wallet."

Someone near her passed her three red darts and she shuffled them in her hands. Eve stepped in front of the board a good distance away and readied herself. Eve was really good at darts by her lonesome, but she'd need a great deal more money than what her normal scores would get. That's why Castiel was here.

One, two, three darts she threw at the target. All three hit the bulls-eye like something from a martial arts film. That whole corner of the bar up roared. Dean and Sam laughed from where they sat.

Mustache man tipped his hat, knowing he was beaten. He took all the cash out of his wallet, folded it, and gave it to Eve. It was a hefty sum.

"Pleasure," she said. Then she yelled over the crowd, "Anyone up to the challenge? Three darts at once, this time! Could win you a pretty penny!" Eve laughed joyously when a younger fellow rose to the challenge.

He was balding and wore a stripped button up shirt. He was here most likely because his wife kicked him out for the night because of his excessive videogame playing. Eve knew all this from the impressions on his hands.

He shook hands with Eve and the mustache man bid him luck after handing him the blue darts.

"How much you bid?" he asked.

"How much do you want?" Eve replied. Really, there was no boundary. Because he wouldn't be getting it anyway.

"A night with you" he replied. He was too sober not to know what he was saying as implicitly inappropriate. "No clothes."

Correction: His girlfriend had kicked him out permanently…for being an insufferable douche.

The bar erupted into laughter once again. The men _oh'_d and the women told Eve to beat his ass.

Eve took a shot glass from someone's hand near her and downed it. She told him, "Honey, no one has been lucky enough to have touched this and survive."

She took stance in front of the target yet again, all three darts in her right hand. She aimed just for show, and released. Eve gave Cas a quick grin when all three deposited in the center dot.

The bar teased and ridiculed the man. Some threw balled up paper napkins at him.

Eve approached the baldy, "Gimme' all you got, pig."

The man scowled and huffed, finished and defeated before he even started. He pushed a wad of money in her hand and stormed out of the bar.

Eve laughed, her back getting pat by strangers as she made her way back to Castiel.

"I say, Dean's turn," Eve said. She and Cas went to the bar just as Eve promised and did shots of tequila.

The rest of the night was spent in merriment. The four of them talked and joked, drank and laughed, until it was time to go home, where the Winchesters said their goodbyes.

"Just hurry up and get whatever you need to get done and healed so you can come home," Sam said.

Eve nodded and smiled into Sam's kiss on her forehead. He pulled her into a hug.

Into his chest, she said, "I'll be back soon."

He let her go, and Dean replaced his brother. He squished her against him.

"Oh you giant cry baby," she teased affectionately. Eve gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just me in my old age—always leaking," Dean said.

"Oh hush. You're only forty-three. Cas is the old grandpa of the room. I mean, he's infinity years old."

"Excuse me?" Cas interjected from the other side of the room. He was looking at some files that he plucked from the shelf.

Eve tipped her head up at him, smiling. "Oh hey there Cas. Lookin' good."

Castiel shook his head and returned the file to the shelf. He stepped out of the room and turned down the hall to where his room was. "I swear if I didn't care for you Winchesters as much as I do…"

Eve chuckled. "Go kick butt," she told Dean and Sam. "I'll see you in a little while."

Dean and Sam fixed the straps of their duffle bags and settled them on their shoulders. They said another quick goodbye before taking the metallic staircase up to the surface. Eve waved them out the door.

Little did she know, her world was about to flip upside down. And then it was going to spin her around like a hamster tripping up in its exercise wheel.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

Fast walking to the baggage claim in the London International Airport, Eve's cell was out of her pocket in a blink. Her finger had already pushed the speed dial when she held the phone up to her ear.

The line rang twice before he picked up. "Hey Evie. Get to London okay?"

"Hey Dean. Yeah, just landed. On my way to get my suitcase."

"No problems with the badge?"

The day Eve turned twenty, Dean fashioned her with a shiny new pseudo FBI badge. It was a necessity for their lifestyle as Hunters and was always close at hand, but taking it (and her gun) overseas was a considerable test of trust on the object. Surely enough, she got through security in both countries without a problem.

"Nope, none. So far everyone seems nice. Haven't really done anything yet. I was just calling to let you and Sam know I made it safely." She hunted down a money converter. While Eve waited on Dean, she sifted her money into the machine and pocketed it on the inside of her shoulder bag. It was a hefty sum.

It was a minute before Dean replied. Eve could tell Dean had moved away from Sam, possibly into a room, so he could speak to her more privately. "Yeah, uh, just so you know kiddo—"

Feeling her carry-on bag's strap slide of her shoulder, Eve yanked it back onto her shoulder and placed her phone back to her ear. "I know, Dean," she said earnestly, as if she were standing face-to-face with him. "It's okay. You don't have to apologize. And I promise to get better ASAP so you won't have to miss me so much."

At the other end of the line, Dean smiled cheerlessly. There was guilt and regret behind that smile. He pinched his nose in between his fingers and his thumb, pulling away quickly and sucking in air through his nose to divert himself from thinking about how much of an ass he knew he had been to Eve. He sniffed again. He knew he should not have brought up her wings. What a gutless thing to do.

Stopping to read some signs directing her to where she needed to go, the corner of Eve's mouth bent upward, knowing the silence that settled between them. Her smile was a dejected one. She then paused walking, feeling alone and lost without Sam and Dean by her side. Her eyes breezed the signs and their concurrent directory arrows a moment.

"Pass me over to Sam," she requested.

"Yeah, hey."

Eve took an escalator down ground level and brushed passed people, both the ones going to and from work and the people hustling home or to their flight. A voice came over the speaker and Eve tuned it out, coming to the carousel that would soon spit out her luggage.

"Hm?" she said, focusing on the turn of the conveyor belt as it rotated and luggage appeared.

A crowd had formed around the carousel and Eve politely pushed her way through.

"Get me one of those tacky tourist t-shirts will ya?"

Eve's concentrated expression split into a grin. "Sure thing. Love ya Dean."

She heard the phone pass from one to another. "Hey," Sam's voice was light; happy.

"Hey Sammy."

"How was the flight? Still in one piece?"

"Ah, no." Eve said, taking on a teasing voice, "Yeah, see, we crash landed somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. It was tragic really." Eve rubbed her eye and then stepped forward to grasp the handle of her suitcase. "I'm the only survivor."

"Sounds like you're all shaken up," he replied, amused. "Will you call again when you get to your apartment?"

"Yes, but I'm positive they're called 'flats' here. Anyway, it must be really early there—it's about noon here."

Eve rolled the suitcase outside the airport where cars pulled up to the curb to await arriving passengers and she hailed a vacant cab. She waved at a few actually, but none stopped for her. Instead they picked up people slightly nearer them.

"It is. We're on a case—well, I am. Researching. The fun stuff. Dean's laying on the bed, eating candy from the bowl he nabbed off a porch."

"The one from Halloween?" Seeing a cab shut off its light and pull in front of her, Eve dropped her tiring arm.

"Yep." The click from his mouse was audible through the phone.

"I thought it would've been gone by now," Eve said. Eve opened the taxi door, shoved her bags into it, and climbed in.

Eve lowered the phone to tell the driver her new address. Despite moving her phone away from her ear, she heard Dean shout at the phone from a distance, "I deserve to eat it after waiting this long."

At the same time, the driver of Eve's taxi gave a nod and pulled away from the curb.

"It's been two weeks," Sam's voice gained an octave. "That's a lot of candy," Sam told him.

Eve brought the phone to her ear again.

"So?" Dean retorted.

Eve could literally feel Sam shoot his older brother a look. She rolled her eyes.

"I'm going to go. Talk to you two nerds later," Eve said.

"Alright, bye," Sam barely got out before she hung up. She slipped her phone in her jacket.

Eve exhaled and dropped her hands into her lap. To get comfortable, she sat forward.

Contrary to popular belief, angels' wings could not be seen by the human eye. It took an angel to see the uniqueness of every pair of flappers that crossed their line of sight. The beauty, the wonderment, the awe, had once been hers because they _were_ hers. Her wings were once the color of the sky early in the morning on that rare occasion when you couldn't see the sun just yet, but you knew it was on its way because of the tinge of light in the sky. They were tipped with splotches of black, as if her feathers were dipped in soot, and when viewed from a certain angle, they were said to have a purple sheen. Spread to their full length, they were long-feathered and just over twice her body length.

They had once been so wonderful to look at and ruffle her feathers; feel the soft barbs smooth under her fingers when she touched them. Also contrary to popular belief: Wings were always there, even if you couldn't see them.

Right now, it pained Eve to look at what was left of her wings. It physically ailed her to sit back in seats or lean on anything with her back. Her wings were stripped from her the same moment as were her powers two years ago, long after she had lost them the first time. Shredded and mangled as if through a wood chipper, they still bore the raw wounds of battle. They had lost their magnificence and she had lost a piece of all that she was.

To remind her of the agony she was at the core of, always, were the chipped, featherless bones sticking out of her back and the large scars on her shoulder blades where feathers were ripped from the base of both her wings. More than anything, they looked like diseased burn marks. In a sense, they were.

Gazing out the window, Eve thought to herself and then, bored with her thoughts, she returned to ponder the cab.

The driver was accustomed to people, particularly children, and she deduced he must love them all. The various photographs taped up on the dash by the taxi's meter were of him and several children from age zero to about twelve.

Her eyes flicked away, having found out enough about this stranger.

"They're m'nieces and nephews," the driver voiced. He was a friendly sounding man, with quiet brown eyes. "I've got seven brothers and sisters, so you know the place's full at Christmas dinner."

Eve smiled softly.

"Haven't got any ankle-biters m'self but I love them. You 'ave any kids? I imagine them bein' mad gorgeous with a mum like you."

_Gorgeous? Please. I'm a mess._

"No I don't."

"Sisters? Brothers?"

"Three," she nodded, "All older brothers. None have kids though." Their lifestyle is not exactly 'child friendly'.

"What a bloody shame. You'd love 'em. Anyway, you look fresh off the boat. On holiday?"

"Yes." Eve hoped the conversation would fizzle out. She did not want to be rude, but she was in no mood to carry on jovially with anyone at the present time.

"Oh, you'll love your visit then. Lots to do. Lot's of friendly people. The food's great too, if I do say so m'self."

She smiled. A greasy burger and a beer sounded all right right about now.

The man kept from talking after that, and without realizing how far the car had traveled, she soon climbed out of the taxi and paid the kind man his fare. She turned away from the quiet street, bag in hand, as the cab drove away.

In front of her was a house sandwiched between two more exactly like it. It was made of clay-colored brick and had two white bay windows stacked on top of one another. The space already looked small, but it was two stories and she was alone, so it wasn't like Eve needed much space. At least the front door was a pretty dark blue color.

Taking a breath and after stretching her wings out a bit (after being stuffed in tight places nearly twenty-four hours, your wings would cramp up too), she lugged her bags up to the yardless estate. She knocked on the door and waited. A minute later, the door swung inward.

A man stood there, lean and gruff looking. He was definitely in his forties, with a prickly beard growing gray off his square chin. He wore a poorly patterned cardigan and a pair of pressed khakis. The brown belt around his waist seemed to constrict his midsection.

"May I help you?" He talked as if he was chewing something constantly, an annoying smacking permanently set in his cheeks. Nothing of him spoke that he would be glad to do anything for anyone. By the dipping of his brow, he was rather peeved.

"I'm sorry sir, but I'm Amy Fewell. I'm the one renting out your empty flat."

"Oh." He was momentarily embarrassed as he welcomed her in.

Immediately, Eve was met with a flight of stairs and, next to it, a hallway tailed with a door.

"Follow me please," the man said as he started up the stairs.

Eve dropped dutifully behind, heaving her belongings up the steps.

"First floor has roof access and all the amenities you need. Telly is nice n' big."

At the top of the steps, he halted in front of a door. It read 4B. It was across from an identical door. The label next to this one read 4A.

The man looked at Eve expectantly, handing her a string of keys from his pants pocket. "I'll collect at the end of the month."

Eve held up a finger, quickly sifting through her shoulder bag. Removing two wads of bills, she asked, "How much will this cover if I ask you to say I never existed?" She handed him the offering.

He looked apprehensive as he extended his hands, the greedy mitts they were, but then seized the money all at once. "Stay as long as ye' want, Miss. I never saw ye'. Have a nice day." He hobbled giddily downstairs.

"Hm," Eve hummed. "Scottish. Collects mule coins. Secretly hates his wife's cat. Got it." She shook her head, smirking, and unlocked the door.

The inside was perfectly…normal.

She was directly greeted with a cozy living space. In front of her were two cushioned armchairs, one with a reading table and a lamp next to it, and a sofa on the other side of a coffee table. On the back wall hung an atrocious metal wall clock shaped to look like vines growing in an orchard. Underneath it was a pair of stout maple bookshelves, packed complimentarily with reading material. The other walls had a few pictures and decoratives on them. There was a desk and a chair, and a bay window like the ones she saw outside.

Installed with a seat, the window also allowed natural light from outside to wash over the area rug and the shiny wooden floors. The sun welcomed itself in, stretching its rays all the way to the kitchen and the room beyond that.

The kitchen shared the same space as the living room, which was the trait that made it seem more American. It had a small breakfast bar with modern stools to sit on and a stove and oven with colorful hot pads hanging on the wall behind it. The fridge was too big just for her—she'd never fill it to its maximum capacity. The cabinets were stained walnut brown and extended from the right of the fridge over to the breakfast bar, pausing only for the metallic fan above the stove. An island with a built in sink sat in the center of the kitchen.

Eve rolled her suitcase into the bedroom beyond the kitchen, passing the door to the bathroom on her right and the door to the roof on her left. There was a window in front of her and a wardrobe on the same wall, parallel to the queen sized bed with white plush covers. On the nearer side of the bed was a digital alarm clock on top of a nightstand.

Eve dropped her bags and fell on the bed, her arms over her head. It felt as comfortable as if looked.

"If this oversized cloud doesn't do me any good, I think I might put a bullet in my brain," she said to herself. Eve sat up abruptly, and closed her eyes.

Smiling, she whispered a few words of thanks to an angel upstairs and asked him to watch over her dumb nut brothers.

"'Dumb nut brothers'. That is a new one," Cas said. Then one of his eyebrows dipped, noticeably concerned. "You never ask to be looked over yourself."

Eve grinned, already standing to meet Cas. "It's because they need more help than I do."

Castiel stepped forward, out of her doorway. His wings ruffled and shuffled, settling from their recent flight.

"That may be true," he replied, "But I did give a teenage girl a promise so many years ago. I promised her I'd look over _all _of the Winchesters."

Eve's eyes shimmered with something between despair and longing. "And you did. She just had to grow up."

Cas glanced away and he smiled wistfully.

"I sure am glad to see you," Eve murmured. "How is Nathaniel?"

Cas met her eyes again and took on a straightforward manner. "He's not too keen on seeing you at the moment. The demons plucked a few of his feathers, and he's told me if losing such a small amount like he did would hurt him this much, God only knows how much you have endured. He said it would hurt him if he came to see you now, and that is why he chooses not to. And as his friend, he hopes you can understand."

"No, no," Eve plopped herself on the bed, absorbing her rejection. "Tell him it's okay. I understand. I don't even want to see me."

Castiel looked lacerated, personally offended, when she had spoken her mind. "Your self-worth should not depend on your wings, Evangeline."

"No, I know," Eve flung a hand around in the air between them, trying to brush off Cas' words and his reproaching manner in which he spoke her name. The two almost always went hand-in-hand.

"No you don't," Cas insisted, pushing her to look at him with the tone of his voice. "All that has happened, all the torture you have gone through, none of it was your fault. God is the only one to blame. I don't know how many ti—"

"And then I killed Him and it changed nothing!" Eve shouted, "I followed the path He made for me, and I did so blindly. It is my fault because I failed to see what was actually happening and _don't you dare,_" she held up a finger at him, "tell me I have helped more people than I have hurt, because I haven't. I'm poison, Cas. I hurt everything I touch."

Cas replied quietly, "Dean told me that once, a long time ago, and he turned out to be one of the best men I have ever known. Even with all the bad he had done, and all the mistakes he made."

Eve closed her eyes tightly, turning her head away from him. Cas placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and stood there a moment more in silence. Then he was gone again.

Sniffing deeply, she stood and ran a hand through her chest-length hair. Making a split decision, she grabbed her keys off the bed and left the flat. She didn't wander far. There was a row of small businesses, mostly bakeries and eateries, across the street. Eve glanced in the windows, strolling from shop to shop, and smiling at the occasional passers-by.

Her mind was constantly infiltrated with the memories of all the wrong she committed. All the hardships she brought upon Sam, Dean, and Castiel. She killed them all at least once, and almost brought the end of the world—of course she was haunted. What else would you expect?

But she wasn't just haunted by the memory of it all. The memory made her fearful. Fearful because she thought, one day, she would be the reason Sam, Dean, and Cas would clock out permanently. It scared her more than anything, and Eve Winchester was not one to scare easy. She had seen many things, terrible things, in her day but nothing would ever compare if she lost her boys.

In fact, it was the reason she nearly cut the world in two. God had pushed her too far, had cleaved her down through her center, and stole her only reasons to fight her impending fate. He had taken her family and dangled them like yo-yos in front of her face. Eve became the most feared being in the universe on that day. A monster uncaged.

And it almost happened again that night in the forest. This is what plagued Eve Winchester. Only that her boys should die at her hand and that she would transform forever into the monster no one could get away from.

When a man accidentally shoved her in the shoulder as she was walking, she clicked back to the present. "Hey buddy."

He gave a nod as his apology and kept on his way. Eve secretly hoped the earphones in his ear would short-circuit and give him a little electric shock. Once upon a time, she could make it happen.

Eve decided she had enough air when she stopped about three streets away from her flat. London was a jungle full of towering reflective giants and busy mechanical beasts zipping by on every road. She'd seen enough and memorized ever minute detail she'd come across. This included the street signs, numbers of the buildings, the cracks in the sidewalk, and the surplus of security cameras on every street corner and at the pinnacle of every rooftop.

The only explanation to her eerie and almost intimidating observational abilities was that, even though her angelic powers were gone, she was still part angel. She was never full-angel because she was still human, but her power surpassed that of any supernatural being, and thus her ability to dissect the environment, in all its manifestations, around her.

Just as she was about to turn back, the sirens sounded. Standing on the corner of an intersection, Eve watched as a fluorescent ambulance led by two neon yellow and white police cars speeding towards her. They slowed, sirens blaring and blasting, about to turn the corner. Cars were inching out of the way where they could.

Eve told herself this was not a job. His was an honest to God car accident or house on fire normal-type-thing. Yet, the itch did not subside.

As the police cars and ambulance zoomed past, rounding the corner with its sirens deafening and lights flashing with urgency, Eve found her right foot leading her into a mad chase after the vehicles.

Her legs became a blur beneath her and her lungs were heaving for a solid breath. Eve's mind grew frantic because she was losing the ambulance—falling too far behind. But then it stopped; the police cars had as well. It was then when Eve noticed the pack of people surrounding a house on the right side of the street. Men in uniform urged the civilians away, and another officer began unraveling the yellow caution tape around the perimeter of the house. The crime scene? Or supposed 'crime scene'.

_No, _Eve told herself, _This isn't a job. You came here to get away from all that._

Yet…Eve is not ashamed to say she rushed to the site anyway. It was just the Hunter in her.

Joining in with the swarm, low murmurs met Eve's ears. Talk of suicide, but even more talk proclaiming it a murder.

"Oh geez," Eve winced. It sure seemed to be a job. Britain must get demons and such just like the US, right?

"What happened?" Eve asked, looking out to the middle-aged couple being ushered to the ambulance. She stood on her toes to peer over the many curious heads ever multiplying in front of her.

A woman with a hideous bob haircut and frayed pink scarf meant to hide her abnormally long neck replied, "Suicide. Poor thing. The McCradys' son, Sean, shot himself in the 'ead this morning. His parents came n' saw him all splayed out n' the floor when they got back from their trip to the market. A shame really, he was first in his class and had a full scholarship to some big shot University…"

"You seem to have known him well," Eve pointed out subconsciously.

"His mother over there," the lady pointed to the ambulance. It as motionless and quiet now, with its doors wide open. A woman with light brown hair and a red, distraught face sat next to her husband (bald and chunky around the midsection) in the opening of the vehicle, draped in a bright orange shock blanket. She wept into her spouse's shoulder profusely.

"—she's a friend of mine. We go to pottery class together."

"Terrible," Eve breathed. She tuned out the woman next to her and zoned in on the taxicab pulling alongside the broadside of the caution tape.

Reporters materialized out of thin air, cameras rolling and countless questions being shouted as two men escaped the interior of the car. The reporters followed the pair a few paces before being blocked by policemen.

One of the two men was taller than Eve. He had wild dark curly hair, and was clad in a dark coat that went down to his knees and a blue scarf was tied around his neck. He strolled up to the yellow tape, indifference and cheekbones—lots of cheekbones—inlaid in his expression. This man lifted the tape for his companion, who was shorter than the he was (Eve gauged he was two inches shorter than her) and walked with his fists balled and rubbed his thumbs on his first fingers. From where Eve stood, his expression spelt out 'deep thoughts'. Either that, or someone lodged a stick up his backend. His expression looked painfully determined.

The two men were met and greeted by a man in a black suit and coat. He was clean cut and shaven, gray in the hair, and looked like he got a lot of sun recently. They exchanged a few words—the shorter man and the man in the suit. The taller man with the curly hair and superior expression observed the house in front of him. He regarded the people in uniform passing through the door to the house, and then finally to the crowd of nosey onlookers.

For a split second, the man made eye contact with Eve. He saw her, everything she is and ever was in a single glance. When his eyes flicked uninterestingly away and her stifled breath returned to her lips, she knew all she needed about this man and the man standing next to him. Still, the look he had given her unnerved her. It left her thinking, as the three men entered the house where she knew a dead man lay with a bullet in his brain.

Eve pocketed her hands and took her leave. She had work to do.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

The next morning began with a bang. In every literal and humane way that can be mustered.

A gunshot in the very flat across from Eve's jolted Eve out of her restless covers. In a flash, her jacket, boots, and gun found their home. No time to look decent—she slept in her white tank top and jeans most nights.

Pocketing her key from the counter, she ran to the door and yanked it open. It slammed shut on its own when Eve left it to begin banging on the door to 4A.

"Police! Open up," she shouted, her hands finding her gun. Eve waited a millisecond before stepping back to kick the door in. Holding her gun steady out in front of her, Eve inched around the house, careful around the corners, and expertly quiet.

The floor plan was the same in this flat as it was in hers, but the furniture differed greatly. Antiques. Everywhere. They were the furniture, the decorations, the wooden show cases lining the walls, and everything seen in between. The television set in the corner of the room was on. It had a news lady on it, spouting off the latest happenings while looking very bored with her mundane life. The remote was abandoned on a leather recliner.

Eve tiptoed up to the remote and switched the TV off. "Hello? Anyone there?" she asked. Hey, she _was _posing as police. They do stupid stuff like asking if the murderer is still in the vicinity.

The Hunter's boots made hardly any noise on the wood flooring as she silently made her way past the kitchen. Eve saw a stack of open bills on the counter; her eyes slid over them momentarily as she slid gun-first into the bedroom.

"Mr. Phillips? FBI. I heard a gunshot—Oh that's just…great." Eve dropped her arms, knowing the threat had long since departed its victim.

The supposed Alan Phillips (assumed from the bulky bills she saw earlier) lay dead at Eve's feet. His head was small but it seemed bigger because of the amount of facial hair, and he gained a lot of weight in the past few months—his pants were one size too small and his buttons strained to keep his muffin top subdued. Not that they would need to any longer because there was a perfectly centered bullet hole between his eyes.

Switching a moment into hunting mode, Eve made her way through the motions. She checked the windowsill for sulfur and whipped out her handmade EMF detector and scoured the room with it. Both expeditions turned up empty.

Flustered and slightly frustrated, she then knelt down by the body. Eve searched over his lifeless body and frozen face. This man's face was moist. Indication: crying.

Her eyebrows furrowed. Where is the gun? There was no trace of a murder weapon anywhere, besides the shot imbedded in Phillip's billboard of a forehead.

"I'm sorry," she said, drawing her hand over the eyelids of the dead man's beady eyes. She lifted her hand when his eyes were closed.

"Police! Police!"

Eve hung her head, annoyed and inconvenienced.

Men—four of them by the sounds of their shoes—entered the apartment, two of which came into the room.

"Drop your weapon!" one of the men demanded from behind her. "Drop it! Hands on your head!"

"Calm down officers," Eve said coolly, keeping her head (the police never really helped in anything in all her experiences). She cautiously set her .92 semiautomatic on the floor and slid it across the ground to the officer's black boots. Gradually, keeping her eyes locked on the two men, she stood and placed her hands on her head.

"Agent Nelson, FBI. Check my pocket if you want proof," she said. The situation was completely under her control, and she knew it, too.

The police were garbed in all black. Sort of funny looking hats were worn on their heads with a checkered strip going around the base of the hat. Their vests were bullet proof, but she couldn't say the same for their ridiculous headgear.

The officer that ordered her to drop her gun had a plump nose and a cleft chin. His tiny timid eyes darted to Eve's chest pocket, where her badge was kept. He stepped forward, his gun still trained on her. He was obviously intimidated by Eve and had a horrible body odor, she noted, as he fished around longer than necessary in her chest pocket. The man seemed to enjoy the discomforted facial expression Eve set forth.

Finally, he found her badge (like it was hard), flipped it open, and shut it again. One nod to his three friends and all guns were lowered.

Eve relaxed visibly, her arms returning to her sides. The man handed her her badge and she slipped it in her jacket.

"What is an American Federal Agent doin' pokin' their nose in a British crime scene?"

"Hey buddy. I'm on vacation. I just bought the apartment across the hall and I heard a gunshot and came to investigate. That's all. The bullet in his head won't be a match to my gun, I can assure you. By the wound in his head, it was a thirty-eight-caliber revolver that belonged to your man. And as you can see, I have a ninety-two semiautomatic. Nor am I a man."

The man widened his eyes. The officers behind him also showed the surprise in their faces. They wanted to know how she could tell.

Not willing to explain herself, she said, "And might I add, you gentlemen are quite quick on the sticks." Eve learned from the best on how to be a Class A shmoozer.

"Oh much obliged, but you still have to stay for questioning." He showed her out to the hall, where she was to wait for some 'Detective Inspector' of some sort. Whatever that meant.

Eve made a face when he left. Two other men stood by, acting as if everything was fine and dandy, but Eve knew who they really were. Her babysitters. Leaning against a wall in the hall, she forced a smile towards her babysitters, entirely too annoyed with her situation. At least they handed her gun back to her.

Minutes later, a man came up the steps and introduced himself as Detective Inspector Lestrade. It only took Eve a moment to process that this was the man at the crime scene only the day before. The one seen with Scarf Man and Half Pint.

He shook her hand and asked her, "Can you tell me what you know? Anything you witnessed, heard, anything at all?" He said it like she was some full-blown damsel in distress about to have a mental breakdown.

"I already told the other guy I saw nothing. All I heard was a gunshot. I went to investigate. End of story," Eve answered.

"Was the door in shards like that when you got to the scene?" Lestrade looked to the sad heap of broken wood barely hanging on its hinges.

"No. I did that." She flashed her badge. Yep. Been there. Done that.

Lestrade blinked at her, as if seeing her from a new angle. Surprised and awed all in one, he said, "Wow. Impressive. Anything else you can tell me?"

"No forced entry except when I came in. Windows are all bolted and only one door. No, actually, tell your men to try the door to the roof. It's in the hall by the bathroom. The murderer must've used that to escape. Also, when I arrived, there wasn't a gun."

"A gunshot but no gun? Donovan, you getting all this?"

A woman dark in the skin and pretty in the face replied, "Yes. Got it." Then she turned to Eve as Lestrade went into the flat. She pulled some tightly wound corkscrew curls out of her face, "Thank you, Agent. Is there any phone number you can give us if we should need to contact you again?"

"Anytime." Eve reached in her jacket and took out a business card with her fake name, and contact information on it. She gave it to Donovan and forced another smile. Eve made her way down the stairs. She brushed past EMTs and people in funny blue body suits—probably the forensics team, by their cases and goofy getup.

Eve prevented a chortle. 'Quick on the sticks' was video gaming jargon. Authorities amused her.

On the way out the door, she realized a crowd had formed outside the boundaries of the crime scene tape already pinned up around the building. Police cars were parked everywhere, lights rotating. Newsmen and women were at the perimeters of their latest news dish.

Eve dodged more policemen entering the house and stepped into the street. A taxicab pulled up. A mass of people formed. Flashes. Shouting.

The men from yesterday separated from the horde, entering the more vacant side of the caution tape. This was the second crime location she'd seen them at, so it only further proved her presumptions on the men.

The short hobbly man walked behind the taller one in the dark coat, muttering something by the looks of the movements in his lips. Scarfy popped his collar and replied with a subtle smile, his eyes fixed on the front door.

Not wishing to stay, Eve passed the two men. She didn't acknowledge their presence when she felt their eyes. In the next moment, she melted skillfully into the crowd of onlookers.

Eve walked hurriedly to the corner of the street and rounded the corner. She had her mind set on one destination. The street of the 'suicide' yesterday.

It took her quite some time this time, because she was not running, but at last, she had the street in her sights. From the corner on the opposite side of the road, Eve stood and watched the house.

It was quaint and attractive; made of molded concrete and painted white. It had a spear-topped iron fence enclosing the sad excuse of a yard (a good two feet of lush green nothing) and some pots in the windowsills with blooming seasonal flowers in them. It would be the last place anyone would expect an untimely death to take place.

Eve leaned on a street lamp, hands in her pockets, and gazed over to the front door. It was maroon in color and it matched the curtains in the windows and the flower arrangements at the foot of the door.

Eve was retracted from her thoughts when her phone rang and buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and answered it. "Hey."

"Hey! I didn't get a call and I just wanted to see if you were okay," Sam's voice always helped calm her nerves.

"Oh shit, sorry," Eve said, checking her watch. "Yeah, uh, listen. I think I found a job."

"A job?" he repeated. As if it needed repeating. Eve could envision his face clearly—raised eyebrows and his head tilted slightly to the side with his mouth shut as he waited on her reply.

"Yeah. As in something weird. No EMF or sulfur trails, but there's definitely something going on because there have been two deaths since I got here."

Sam was quiet a moment. He was thinking. "Look," he drew out a long sigh, "You're supposed to be recuperating and getting better. I don't think a hunt is the best thing for you right now."

"I know but—"

"And this is probably a bad idea," Sam cut her off, trying to prove a point. "But I know it's useless to try and stop you. You want to get to the bottom of it, and I would too. So that is why I'm telling you to be careful."

Eve took a breath. "Thank you Sammy."

"So what am I looking for?" There was movement as he was going for his laptop.

Eve gave him an account of all she learned and all that had happened.

After that, Sam said, "Alright. This is weird."

"You said it. It's gotta be something, right?"

"Yeah, sounds like it. I'll give you a call if I find anything. Just come back in one piece, okay?" Sam's voice was killing her. It was worried and trustful and caring, and it was all for her.

"Yeah." She hung up and stared at the screen for a few seconds before returning it to her jacket. Eve looked up at the house again.

A car pulled up in front of the residence and the woman with dun shaded hair climbed out of the back seat. From where Eve stood, she could tell it agonized the woman to walk up to her door. Her hand trembled over the keys when she unlocked it and it took her some seconds to finally get the door open. Eve watched the woman vanish into her house while piecing the last bits of her plan together. Then, Eve crossed the road and stepped up to the front door. She knocked.

The footsteps on the floor inside the house would normally be lighter than air, but were now heavy with remorse. The door opened inward.

"Yes?"

Her face was slim and damp with hours' worth of tears in the making. As if all the color was sapped from her eyes, all that remained within them was a dark downcast gloom. The skin on her face, especially below her eyes and nose was red with irritation—it had been a violent cry.

"I—I'm sorry ma'am. I fear I came at the wrong time—" Eve stopped herself there and backed off the tiny porch, moving to leave. It was all part of the plan.

As expected, the grieving mother stopped Eve. "No, no, dear. Sorry. I just—I—lost someone very close to me and I—I—" She made a fuss and tears streamed. All she wanted was someone to seek comfort in.

Ah, well. Anything to get the job done. "Oh, so…it is true. I hear about Sean and I just had to know if it was true. That's why I came," Eve said, stirring up her best disconsolate complexion. She wrapped her arms around herself and stepped onto the porch, level with the woman.

"Did you know him?" the mother asked, bewildered. Then she reached in the pocket of her knit sweater and took out a handmade handkerchief. She blew her nose loudly and wiped her upper lip, regarding Eve with a curious stare.

Eve nodded, simulating as Sean's familiar. "We were going to go to the University together." Eve bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, making her eyes water. She sniffed, to bring the woman's attention to the tears in her eyes.

"Oh please, come in," the woman let Eve enter her home. "I'm sorry. I've been terribly rude. Please forgive me—I—'m just out of sorts." She quickly closed the door behind her visitor and showed her into the sitting room, just off the small corridor.

"Of course. I shouldn't have barged in here on you without notice. It was a really dumb thing to do now that I think about it." Eve looked away nervously. She sat on a cushioned chair and gave the house her Hunter's once-over.

When the lady offered her tea, she ignorantly mistook Eve for admiring the family photos on the walls and the abundance of flower arrangements around the room. Eve politely declined and the woman made herself a cup. What Eve was really looking for was sulfur.

"Alright," the woman breathed, sitting in a gray loveseat across from Eve. "I'm sorry," her brow knotted, "I don't think I caught your name."

She kept saying 'sorry' like it was her fault. Eve's heartstrings were tugged every time the woman uttered the word.

"I'm Clova Mclain." Eve extended her hand and the woman shook it, craving for some human interaction.

"You were friends with my Sean? You must be rather smart in order to get into the University. Aspiring brain surgeons do have to play at the top of their game though don't they? Pity he never mentioned you. We would've loved to have you over for some tea." Now she was babbling on and on as if Eve would bolt the moment she stopped.

_Wait. Brain surgeon? "Oh, _yes. I've wanted to operate on brains nearly my entire life. And Sean never mentioned me? That's unlike him. He loved all his friends—which begs me to ask, did you notice anything the day he…?" Eve abstained from the word 'died' to keep the woman from crying.

"Of course not. He was excited and ready to write his next chapter in life. He had a future. I ne—ver expected him to take his life. I don't even know where the gun wound came from. My husband doesn't own a gun." She teared up again, sniffled a few times, and fiddled with the handkerchief in her twitching, straining hands.

_Interesting. _Eve's interest was certainly piqued now. "Did you notice anything strange like rapid temperature drops, faulty electronics, flickering lights, things like that?"

Sean's mother gawked at her. "No. What would that have to do with my Sean?" Her voice gained an octave and Eve's red warning flag waved.

"You didn't hear? Two streets over I heard some gas mains busted and it killed some house pets over there. Terrible," Eve said, taking plan B's route. "You should get yours checked."

"Oh good Lord," she looked appalled, clutching the square cloth to her chest, "I'll do that right away."

Having gathered all the information she needed, Eve checked her wristwatch. "I'm sorry, but I have an appointment. I really have to go."

Sean's mother trailed Eve to the door, grabbing her telephone from the foyer table. "Please come back again soon. I'd love to hear all of you stories about Sean," she said, her hands jittery as she punched in a number on the phone. With the other hand, she opened the door for Eve.

Eve smiled. "I will." She won't.

"Good," the woman glanced at Eve with the first hint of a smile residing in the corner of her mouth. "Great. Have a wonderful day Clova," she shouted after Eve as she walked down the front steps and strolled into the street.

"You too!" Eve waved and the door shut.

As Eve quickly distanced herself from Sean's house, an adamant feeling in the pit of her stomach made Eve feel as if she was being watched. Having been in this situation countless times before, Eve played the role of the inattentive and, deciding it a bad idea to return to her apartment, she braved the great London wilderness. She hailed a cab and as she requested, it took her to Old Street, where she jumped out of the car and stepped into a little hole in the wall bakery shop.

The inside screamed 'grandmotherly lady in her sixties'. Blush pink, lace doilies, overly iced cupcakes, and the whole shebang. A bell jingled above Eve's head as she entered and a woman behind the counter welcomed her in.

Eve smiled, masking the disquieting feeling of being watched. She couldn't look directly to see who it was for fear of them finding out that she knew of their presence. She'd have to catch them out of the corner of her eye, but for now she had to play it cool.

"Can I get a few cookies to go please?" Eve asked, randomly choosing a selection in the glass case in front of her.

"Sure you can!" The woman behind the counter exclaimed. She dished out a few, packed them in a rosy pink paper bag, and handed it to her customer. Eve paid and left the bakery.

Outside, there was a cluster of light pink metal tables and chairs, with white umbrellas shading the area over them. A man sat in one to Eve's right, a large newspaper held up in front of him, so she could not see his face. He seemed absorbed in his readings.

Eve sat at a lone table a good distance away from the man. She decided to stay put until the churning in her stomach diluted. Pulling a chocolate chip cookie out of her bag, she scanned the scene around her.

Everything was perfectly normal. People, lots of them, going places and doing things they probably did every single day. Taxicabs hurrying by. Streetlights going through their timed cycled of operation. Normal life. For a second, and only thus, Eve thought she worried too much.

_Back in Black! I hit the sack!—_Eve answered her phone in less time it took for her to blink. "Hello."

"Hey, Sam said you found a job?" Dean got right to it.

"Eve set her elbow on the table, using her hand as a head rest. "Yeah. I found a job."

"Everything alright?" he sensed a slight alteration in her voice. "Did you get in any trouble?"

"Yes and no. I'm sorry I didn't make it to Piccadilly last weekend. I've been swamped lately." Eve bit a chunk out of her cookie.

Dean stopped walking down the street and froze. His free hand shot out to catch the shoulder of Sam's suit.

Sam turned, "What's wrong?"

'Piccadilly' was codeword. Eve was being followed.

Dean's face hardened. For a moment, he forgot everything outside of his phone call. Someone he loves is in danger and everything else just falls to the wayside. Right now, he wasn't an FBI agent, he was a protective older brother ready to snap some necks if anyone touched Eve.

"Who is it, Eve? Can you see them?" Dean's voice lowered. Sam stood by, waiting for the account of what happened.

"No, I can't," she answered him. "I figured I'd just go back to the apartment and get a few hours of sleep. Jet lag is really catching up on me."

By Eve's tone, Dean knew she'd try to trap whatever was following her, and soon. "I'll send Cas."

"No. I got it."

"Eve—" Dean's voice took on a reprimanding edge. Dean took the phone from his ear in the next moment, and hung up after blinking at the screen. He was annoyed because Eve hung up on him first.

Eve exhaled and stood, stuffing the last bit of her cookie into her mouth and putting the pink bag into her pocket. She had research to do.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter Four:

It was well into the night when Eve at long last thought her undistinguished visitor would never show. The lights in her apartment were all off, drowning her along with everything else in her flat in pitch-black darkness. Despite every bone heavy in her body begging for sleep, Eve was awake all through the night, sitting, waiting patiently in her chair that faced the front door.

Her gun was in hand, loaded and ready for when her adherent would finally reveal himself. But alas, it was nearly two in the morning and he had not shown. Eve was beginning to doubt her intuition, even though it had a record for never disappointing her before.

That's when Eve heard the tiny, metal-scraping-metal noises on the other side of the door. She knew that sound like the click of her gun (in other words, _very well). _Someone was picking the lock. Curious, very curious.

Instinctively, her fingers wrapped around her weapon, every inch of her tensing as she sat straighter in her chair.

The door opened silently inward. In the darkness, Eve's eyes saw the figures of two men enter her temporary home. Their motions were expertly charted out, the way they slid like vile little snakes into her living room. Eve waited until the door shut. It did.

Her hand flung to the lamp on the side table next to her. It immediately caused the room to light up enough for her to see her stalker and his accomplice. Her right hand held the gun steady, aimed at the chest of one of the men she saw earlier.

Up close, he was rather attractive, in a completely unassociated kind of way. He was six feet tall and had a mess of dark brown on top of his head that created a thick bundle of wiry curls around the contours of his face. He was oozing confidence and was composed of nothing but angles, the most skeptical pair of glasz colored eyes she had ever seen, and full, insulting lips. With a thin face, came a thin, arrogantly held frame hidden under a tied royal blue scarf and a black Belstaff coat.

"Nice night for breaking and entering you think fellas? I imagine this could get you locked up for a while."

The man in the scarf stood straighter, eyes boring into Eve's. "As would impersonating a Federal Agent." His voice was published in a smooth baritone, and incredibly velvety despite his standpoint at the deadly end of a gun.

Eve titled her head, sturgeon face taking root in her expression. "Good point," she flicked the gun to the sofa, motioning for them to take a seat before she went back to pointing her gun at them.

The short man with the flaxen hair and constant 'why me' expression was the first to move towards the couch—one prone to following orders. Ah, so a military man. That would explain the stiff way he carried himself. He sat on the couch, blinking at Eve—entirely too conditioned to gunpoint situations, even though her gun was still trained on the other man.

His calculating gaze never left Eve as he stepped, deliberately unhurried, next to his friend and sat, unspeaking.

If they were demons, she already had them trapped. She painted a devil's trap on the underside of the area rug earlier.

Eve and Scarf Man exchanged looks, mute. He sat back, crossing his legs and folding his hands on his lap. He was really keen on watching Eve; dissecting every pore of her as if she was a bacterium under a microscope. Eve stared back, knowing he would not come up with anything worthwhile.

His friend was quiet in his confused state. His eyes went from Scarfy to Eve, to Scarfy, and to Eve again.

Finally, Eve broke the silence. "So why did you find it necessary to break into my apartment?"

"Why did you fake being an FBI agent?"

"How do you know I faked it? You never even saw my badge." Eve goaded him.

"I don't have to," his mouth barely moved as he said this and his eyebrow went aloft. "The rough skin between your right thumb and forefinger suggests the use of blunt instruments in confrontation on a regular basis—something last I checked was not encouraged in your supposed line of work. The heavy discolored bags under your eyes indicate chronic insomnia, which would certainly have you removed from duty shortly after diagnosis and there's no way an American government agency would miss such a severe case. Unless they really are that desperate."

"Impressive," Eve said, unfazed. "Please Mr. Holmes, do go on. I'd love to hear more about myself." He could have the whole blasted night if he wanted.

The man next to Sherlock gave Eve a bewildered look. Slightly frightened, he asked, "How do you know his name?"

"Oh please, John. Finally, someone did their research," Sherlock sat forward gleefully. The corner of his mouth upturned and his eyes sparkled, delighted in this game play.

John looked as lost as ever. Who was this woman? He kept glancing from Eve to Sherlock, unsure of what was happening.

For his sake, Eve said, "Here there, timid." She let the magazine of her gun fall to the carpeted floor and set the empty firearm on the table next to her.

John relaxed.

The smile dissipated from Sherlock's face while he brought his hands together and pressed them to his mouth. He sat forward in his seat as if to get a better view of the woman under his suspicions. His eyes traveled her figure, stitching together his deductions.

It was less than a few seconds when he began exerting his thesis. His words flew in a flurry of insensitive stressed consonants, flaunting his uncanny deducing abilities. "You're five foot eight, normally about a hundred thirty-seven pounds, adequately built for the lifestyle you maintain. Your toned features—arms, midsection, legs—indicate vigorous exercise, not for recreation but because your particular employment requires physical homeostasis. Recently however, as I pointed out earlier, your chronic insomnia, paired with an advanced form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has contributed to your malnutrition and therefore your decreased body mass, which is why you weigh about," he waved his hand in front of himself, tilting his head side-to-side as he estimated, "a hundred twenty-three bounds and your accented clavicle."

"Hmph," Eve said. "Look at you." She said it as if she was surprised with his audacity. She wasn't really, she was just surprised that someone could talk so much without tiring of their own voice.

"The scratches on your boot are striated vertically," he pointed to her foot, where a familiar object was partly concealed and partly visible above the top of her boot. "The fraying by the rim is from repeated removal of that blade. Most likely in life threatening situations, judging by the sloppy scars left on your boot from your handiwork. Your watch has several scratches on the face, suggesting you bang it around a lot, and paired with my previous deductions, it is because you participate in frequent hand-to-hand combat. Further proving you are _not _an FBI agent. I suggest you wear your watches on your left arm from now on." Sherlock Holmes sat back in his seat, crossing his legs once again. He put his arm on the armrest next to him, tapping his fingers on the fabric as if awaiting her backlash.

"Besides," he added promptly, "your alcoholism would not be tolerated by any American government agency. It also doesn't mix well with your depression and self-hatred."

"My alcoholism is none of your business, just like your drug addiction is none of mine," Eve retorted.

She could see Sherlock's eyes widen ever so slightly, and he sucked in a breath as he brought his hands back to his lips. John threw a finger up at her and then, mouth agape, at his friend beside him.

"How did she know that?" he exclaimed breathlessly.

"Oh please," Eve dragged on, "The only reason he doesn't shoot up now is because his alternative gets his blood pumping and over analytical mind racing just as much as any drug does. Also, Doctor Watson, I'd suggest you take that pack of cigarettes out of your friend's pocket. He's been back on them for quite some time."

John shot her a baffled look and then leaned closer to the detective to search his coat. Sherlock went stark, not bothering to detain his companion from his search.

When John came back with a box of cigarettes, he shook it. Half empty. John was stunned and an all-new fearful wonderment set in his eyes when he looked at Eve once again. "Oh my God."

"Sorry, no," Eve said.

"There's two of them," John breathed, taken aback. A flicker of amazed incredulity passed over him. He was shocked into muteness for a few moments, leaving Sherlock guessing Eve's angle.

This. This was something new. Sherlock loved this. It excited him, though he didn't let it show. This woman definitely had something to do with this case. She was smart, superbly skilled in more than one area as she has so dutifully proven, and she had thinking processes similar to himself, oh _yes. _This case was getting fun. It thrilled him, but he just couldn't pinpoint her angle. Why was she here? Who was she really? What relations does she have to the murders? This. This irritated him, confused him, even. All the question marks he saw around her—this was strangely different than when he first met The Woman. And he simply didn't know why.

"I bloody live with you!" John erupted, "I would've noticed!" He threw up his arms and yelled at the man next to him.

"But you didn't," Sherlock commented, eyes rooted on the woman in front of him.

"_I know! _Sherlock, you—!"

"John, I highly advise you to stop yelling now. You'll wake the whole city."

John lowered his voice but didn't refrain from harsh whispering and spitting through his teeth. "I'm going to wring you neck, Sherlock. I thought we talked about this!"

"No." Sherlock replied, completely unmoved by his companion's scolding. "You talked. I ignored you."

John made some indiscernible grunts and throaty noises and hand gestures toward his friend, who forever blinked ahead of him. Then John finally gave up and slapped his head into his palm. He took a breath to calm himself and picked his head up again.

"Who are you?" Sherlock asked slowly.

"Amy Fewell."

"No," he narrowed his eyes.

"Clova Mclain."

"Nope." He made an excessive popping noise with his lips.

"Cheryl Conner. Sage Wilson. Elizabeth Bray. Mary Chandler. Lena Marie Dixon," Eve spouted off names, "Really names aren't important. Especially mine."

"Or you just want to keep me guessing."

"Maybe there's no use telling you."

"Maybe it's the key to this case."

"It isn't, I assure you."

"Explain all the badge waving and shady movements then. Assurance is not enough to sway me," his voice hardened. He had a particular manic shine to his eyes. The kind of fire within them that proposed he was either a genius or a maniac. Eve supposed he was the balancing figure between the two.

"It's my job. And not to be rude but, my business, not yours," she replied stubbornly. "I have nothing to do with these murders."

"So you think them murders."

"No, I know they are murders. No one shoots themselves in the face between the eyes. It's always either in the side of the head or below the chin. Surely you know that."

His eyes flicked away as he inhaled through the mouth. "I do. Plus, the murderer shot at eye level about three and a half meters away from the victim. So I also know you are not the culprit—"

Eve started laughing.

Sherlock held his head back, his brow knitting together in confusion.

John glances at Sherlock. "What?" John asked her.

"Nothing," Eve chortled, calming herself. "I just think you are over compensating for something," she told the consulting detective.

"Over compensating for what?" He was truly at a loss.

"The fact that you have a small—"

_"Oookkkaayyy!" _John interjected, his eyes doubling in size as he twitched uncomfortably in his seat.

Suddenly, Eve's whole manner shifted. She squared her shoulders and her eyes became piercing daggers. Her voice was a rock solid promise. "And to think I lost valuable sleeping time to be subjected to your invections. I'm sorry, but if you ever try to tell me about my own life again I will not hesitate to knock you on your ass. You know nothing about me or my life or the hardships I have endured."

For the first time, John Watson saw Eve. What she said made him really take her in. She normally would have been very beautiful. Her brown hair came down long and soft over her shoulders. Her eyes were a vibrant hazel that could peel the outer layers of skin off any man with just one look. Her lips looked very kissable and her jaw swooped down to mark a feminine chin, and the way she held herself—assured, in control, her own boss, why it was enough to grab any man's attention. She certainly snagged John's.

And then he wondered what could have made her into this emaciated, depressed woman who so obviously went to great lengths to conceal her pain, as she was now.

Realizing he'd been staring, John cleared his throat and his eyes flicked to Sherlock. John scratched his nose.

"I think you two gentlemen have overstayed your welcome," Eve announced.

"Yes, I think we have," Sherlock stood, "John."

John cleared his throat again, "Yep, coming."

She watched as they stepped off the carpet. _Damn. _They weren't demons, at least.

When John closed the door behind the two of them, Eve bent down to retrieve her magazine, replaced it in her gun and tucked the weapon in her belt. She went to lock the door again. Digesting what had just happened, she went into the kitchen to the fridge…

_"Happy Birthday Evie," Dean said, sitting across from her at the small square table. He pushed one of the three beers he had in his hands across the table._

_ "What's this?" Eve asked._

_ Sam took his beer and smiled. To say he wasn't proud to be seeing his little sister grow up was a lie._

_ "It's a spoonful of sugar. Drink it," Dean said._

_ It was her twenty first birthday and the trio had finished a job earlier that day. Dean felt this as Eve's reward._

_ Hesitantly, Eve brought the beer to her lips and took a sip. She swallowed and Sam and Dean laughed at her face._

_ Cackling, Sam said, "You look like you're sucking on a lemon."_

_ "It's disgusting! How do you two drink this stuff?" Eve said._

_ Dean took a gulp. "It's Hunter's medicine."_

_ He always called it 'Hunter's medicine'. Because it numbed the pain._

…Eve opened the fridge and took out a beer bottle. She already had the glass to her lips and the pungent clovelike liquid glide over her tongue as she walked back to her room. Her eyes were dead in her cold, determined look.

* * *

"Sherlock." John looked at his companion as they rode to Baker Street in the quiet taxicab.

"Hm?" Sherlock silently watched out his window.

"Can you tell me—I'm not really sure what we accomplished back there. I'm not even sure what happened."

"Yes…" Sherlock uttered, the word barely on his tongue.

"She's just like you."

Sherlock let his eyes lazily slip closed and he opened them again. "Seems that way."

"Do you think we'll see her again?" John inquired.

Sherlock looked at John out of the corner of his eye, debating the intent of that question. "Of course we will. If she's anything like me, she can't resist a good murder."

John _hmph'_d and sat back in his seat, blinking as he endeavored to absorb his friend's words. A few silent moments later, as the car bumped along, John asked, "Do you still think she has something to do with the case?"

"Yes. Coincidence is not a virtue the universe gives us the liberty to experience. To be at both crime scenes and later come back to one to interrogate the victim's mother? Highly unlikely she does not have a hand in the case."

"What if she is just trying to figure out who killed them like we are?"

"Well, how improbable that is, given the circumstances, I suppose we should figure out why she's interested in two seemingly random murders."

"'We'?" John stared at the consulting detective.

"Obviously. You've got to be the one that gets close to her. In the next few days I suspect we'll be seeing quite a lot of each other—I have no leads as to who the murderer is so that means he's clever. And since he's clever, he is going to claim another life. She will be attracted to it like a fly to rotting flesh. So, it is your job to convince her you are not the enemy. Figure out who she is and why she is here."

"Why me?" John asked, so forwardly confused why Sherlock didn't volunteer himself for the task.

"Because you like her," Sherlock pulled out his phone and scrolled through some pages casually. "Besides, human interaction," he said, tilting his head toward John, while his eyes were still glued to the screen, "is not my 'thing'," he threw up a hand to make the quotation hand gesture with his fingers, "as you so eloquently put it."

John nodded slowly, unsure if Sherlock had insulted him or not. "Also," John said haltingly, "I need to know where the rest of your cigarettes are."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and dropped his hand in his lap, his phone going with it. "Oh come on!"

"No I mean it. I mean it, Sherlock!" John stabbed a pointer finger at him.

"Fine," Sherlock grumbled.

The cab slowed and came alongside the curb. The door to 221B came into view. The two men got out of the vehicle.

Sherlock jounced up to the front door. "If you can find them, you can have them."  
He opened the door and shut it behind him.

"Oh for God's sake—" John exhaled, cross. He paid the cab driver and followed Sherlock inside.

"Sherlock," John walked up the steps and into their living space, "We agreed. Cold turkey. It's not good for your health."  
"Neither are your jumpers," Sherlock commented, coat and scarf stripped of his body. He bounced over to his computer and typed something into it, his eyes focused on the screen. The computer alit his face in an artificial light.

"What?"

"You heard me. Now go get some sleep. I expect we'll be seeing her soon."

John gave Sherlock a look, about to say something else. Deciding to leave Sherlock to his computer, John retreated to his room.

Sherlock grinned knowingly at his screen.

_****Please review! Thank you!****_


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

_"Oh my God," Eve whispered to herself, waking fully from her hypnogogic state. _

_She sat up in her bed, "Oh my God." _

_ Pulling a plaid shirt off the headboard of her bed, Eve ran out of her room and to the Batcave's garage where she knew Dean would be working on the Impala (it was damaged on a hunt a while back and he was hell-bent on fixing her up). Eve slipped the shirt on, her arm catching in her sleeve in her sudden burst of stamina. _

_ "Dean! Sam! I had an idea!" she called out into the dimly lit halls as she ran, her socked feet sliding as she gyrated around a corner._

_ She ran into the garage and went over to where Dean was hunched over the Impala's engine, cranking something in the motor._

_ "What is it?" Dean asked as she came up to him. He stood up straight, and tossed his tool in the box he had laid out by his feet._

_ Sam walked in the room, fueled by concern. "What happened?"_

_ Eve looked at Sam, and then Dean. She squeezed her right hand in her left and took a quick breath, gathering her nerves. "I think—I think God wants to die."_

_ Flashes. Quick ones. Almost overlapping._

_ Dean staring vacantly through the trees, mouth slack._

_ "I'll never do what you want!" Eve cried, tears in her eyes. Her voice was raw and broken._

_ "Yes you will. It's what I created you for!" God said. He blinked and suddenly, Sam was down on the ground, next to his brother. Dead._

_ "Stop it!" Eve shrieked, "I can't do it! I won't do it!"_

_ God held up a hand and Castiel appeared. His hands were tied and his mouth was gagged by an invisible force, in the same way Sam and Dean had been only moments before. Cas' eyes looked to her, frightened, and trying to convey a message his voice could not._

_ "No!" Eve yelled, "Please no. Don't. Don't do this," Eve was enfeebled, broken, subdued. She could not stand against He Who Knew All Things. He Who Created All Things._

_ Eve sunk to her hands and knees before Him._

_ God said, "Creation, you will do my bidding. On your feet," God ordered. "I said, on your feet."_

_ Eve stood, wet tears saltier than the deepest seas still streaming from her eyes. "Cas," she said in a languishing, scratchy voice. She was so sorry. This was all her fault. Without pity, God released his binds on Castiel and watched Eve's face contort into the depiction of profound woe. _

_ Cas' body dropped like a sack of bricks and hit the ground with a dull thud. His life, his essence, all but left his body. It was taken from him before he even touched the ground._

_ Eve's mouth opened and her chest burst with the most nightmarish scream, chilling the spines of anything that could hear it around the world. _

_ Flashes. Too bright. Like strobes._

_ "What do you mean?" Dean asked._

_ "Think about it. No one knows how to kill God because it hasn't been done before. Death doesn't even know—he'll just reap Him when it happens. So, He creates me to do the job. Plucks me from my dimension and brings me here and I 'accidentally' get angel powers? A natural born human with angelic abilities? It's never been done before. I dunno, I'm just thinking that is why I was brought here. Why I was chosen."_

_ Flashes._

_ The three of them looked asleep. Their muscles were relaxed, no longer taut with life and use, but all of their bodies were in unconventional angles and their eyes were open—wide open. Their last expressions lingered on their faces. Excruciated grimaces and ghostlike fear etched there, unwelcoming and as if from a heart-stopping dream. Their mouths were open: a strange image—one part agony, one part repose._

Eve's body convulsed into lucidity. She was about to scream, gasping in her bed, tangled in her sheets. Realizing where she was, she held a hand to her head and shut her eyes, preventing tears. Her heart felt like it would torpedo itself out of her chest and she would bleed out. She had to tell herself everything was okay. Sam, Dean, and Castiel were okay. They were okay because she was not there.

Eve jumped again when her phone rang. She wiped her eyes free of sleep and reached for her cell phone on the nightstand. The number was one she did not recognize.

"Hello?" She hitched herself onto her elbow and glanced at the clock next to her. It was seven thirty in the morning.

"Oh good, you're awake. Come to Baker Street right away. No time to talk."

_Sherlock? _"How the hell did you get my number?" Eve closed her eyes, discovering the answer as soon as she asked the question. "Lestrade," she exhaled, rubbing her eye once more. She then looked at her screen, put the phone to her ear, and then looked at the screen again. She hung up.

"He hung up on me. Oh my God, I'm going to punch him." Eve said, falling onto her stomach again and shoving her face into her pillows.

Her phone buzzed. She was getting a text message.

With her face still buried, she slapped a hand on her chattering cell phone. Aggravated, she picked her head up and glared venomously at the screen.

**221B Baker Street. Clearly marked. You can't miss it.**

**SH**

Eve scowled and growled her way out of bed. She got ready for the day and angrily went to Baker Street.

* * *

Eve was exhausted. She was positive her blood was just molten lead. Her footsteps were achy and tired as she stepped up to the door with a gold '221B' nailed to it. Before she had the chance to knock on the door, it opened swiftly away from her hand and out rushed the madman himself.

Eve stared after him as he charged up to the side of the road, his arm raised. He acted as if she was not there.

"Wow. Rude," she thought aloud.

John came out next and shut the door. "Morning," he said.

Eve took a step back, blinking. "Morning…" she said apprehensively.

John smiled, jingling his keys in his jacket pocket. "Lestrade just phoned us. There's a body at Bart's and we need to take a look. Sherlock and I are inviting you to come along."

"One like the past two?"

"Sherlock doesn't think so, but I think we need a third opinion."

"Taxi," Sherlock shouted. A cab rushed to him.

"Uh," Eve stalled. She wasn't sure what was happening.

John shifted the weight on his feet and blinked at her. A pleasant grin was on his face when he said, "Please come with us."

"John."

John and Eve turned to see Sherlock holding open the taxi door.

Eve walked up to the car and slid into the vehicle. John strolled up to Sherlock, eyebrows nearly vanishing in his hairline, because he was surprised at the woman's silent compliancy. He then got in the cab and Sherlock shut the door after him.

When the car drove off immediately after, John turned confusedly in his seat to look at Sherlock through the back windshield.

"Sher—" he gave a huff and situated himself rightly in his seat.

"Didn't expect him to ditch you with me, did you?" Eve concluded as much.

John side glanced her, giving himself a tiny smirk after a bit. "No, but I," he paused, sighing and sitting back, "suppose I should have. He's always full of surprises."

Eve widened her eyes and looked away from him. "I bet."

John left her to her silence and settled himself in it as well. It was only a few short minutes until they came to Bart's Hospital.

John accompanied Eve to the morgue, where a woman with her auburn hair tied back in a taut ponytail approached the both of them. She wore a white lab coat, and her nametag clipped to her chest pocket read 'Molly Hooper'.

Although she greeted the pair with a friendly smile, she asked John, "Who's this? Where's Sherlock?"

"Present," Sherlock announced, materializing behind Molly.

He gave her such a startle that she jumped an inch into the air and nearly lost her grip on her clipboard.

"Molly, this is," John glanced at Eve, his hand out to signal 'this is' in Eve's direction. He realized in the next second he still didn't know who she was, balled his fist, and quickly dropped his hand. "a friend. She's a friend."

Eve's eyes flicked to John and away again before anyone could notice.

Molly kept smiling. "Okay. I suppose I should show you the body now."

"Yes." Sherlock rudely imposed.

"Right," Molly said, "If you would follow me."

Eve noted Molly's sweet, unassuming personality. She was awkward, but her heart was ten times the size of a normal human being and even if Eve didn't like Sherlock and wasn't quite sure yet about John, she knew automatically that she liked this Molly character.

Molly led the three into a white room. It had rows of lights in the ceiling and separate lamps on every table (which this room had ample of) in the room. The tables were also prearranged in rows and were purposely the predesigned length and width of an average human.

On one of these metallic tables closer to the center of the room, Molly halted. She faced to address Sherlock, "He looks sort of livid. Lots of bruising on the skin, but when I cut him open, there was massive internal bleeding." Molly bent over the head of the body, pinched the corners of the tarp concealing it, and folded it down to the cadaver's waist. "Especially in the lungs," she added.

Eve, John, and Sherlock all examined the body—Sherlock, however, much more up close and personal. He sniffed the body up and down, flipped out a miniature magnifying glass and inspected all the nooks and crannies of the dead man. He considered the bruising covering the man's expanses and then stood erect, snapping his magnifying glass contraption shut, and stared at the body a moment more. His next movement was fluid like water: His top half tilting ostensibly backwards as he swung his shoulders to the side, twirling with the bearing of a dancer, to speak with John and Molly.

He said, "I assume he was found by a body of water."

Molly, standing next to John, stuttered, "Well—yes." Her awkwardness surfaced upon direct confrontation from Sherlock.

Eve guessed this was because she had the hots for him.

"I have the report here. The amount of force that would have to take place in order to traumatize someone like this would have to be great. It had to be—"

"TNT," Eve and Sherlock said simultaneously.

Sherlock glanced at Eve. Molly stared at Eve. So did John.

"I watch a lot of reruns of Mythbusters," Eve fibbed, much to everyone's misdetection.

Sherlock glanced at Eve again, bending over the corpse. "The explosion happened in the water. He died a little less than twenty-four hours later."

"How do y—? Never mind," Molly said. She was conditioned to Sherlock's inferences. Molly turned to Eve, who stood beside John now, on the right side of the table. "What do you think?"

Eve opened her mouth, her brow rising, "I think he looks a bit…stiff."

Molly sniggered, her hand going to her nose and mouth to stifle her tiny snorts. "Oh that's funny," she said. When her eyes met with Sherlock's she deadpanned and made throat noises intended to make her seem serious and more professional.

John faced his friend across from him, "So when did this 'explosion under water' happen?"

"Approximately two weeks ago on the east banks of the River Thames where it branches off into several smaller streams."

John blinked and stood back. "How the hell do you know that?"

"Honestly John, do you ever read the papers?"

"Hang on, what day was this?"

"The twenty-ninth of October."

"No, no, I specifically remember that day you used my paper as a placemat for a brain you had in the kitchen."

Sherlock sniffed inward, the memory coming to him. "Ah yes. I was approximating the number length of blood vessels in the brain. I calculated it to be a substantial figure about a hundred sixty-one thousand kilometers. Rounding, obviously."

"So?"

Looking rather bothered by John's lack of enthusiasm at his findings, Sherlock withdrew his phone from his pocket. He held it up for everyone to see. There was a news article on the screen. He posited confidently, "A government test site set off explosives to test new military machines downriver, out of the public eye in case something should go amiss. This man wandered in a place he shouldn't have and paid the ultimate penalty."

"Oh," Eve said to herself.

Sherlock furrowed his brow at her. "He was part of the operation, which is why nobody caught him and hauled him away in time. He knew they would be detonating that day so—"

Eve spoke up, "Bottom line, Sergeant Swimmy here was suicidal. His wife left him for another man, so he saw this as his ticket out." After realizing everyone was looking at her, she added, "Sorry, but he was getting a bit mouthy."

Molly's eyes darted from Eve to Sherlock. "But that still doesn't explain how he ended up floating downriver. You said he died less than a day later—which is not wrong—but wouldn't he have gotten out of the water?"

"He did," Eve exerted. "Only because someone saw him and pulled him out of the water. How he ended back at the river is anyone's guess, but I think there was a favorite spot where he and his wife would go to be alone. He was standing by himself, probably leaning over the railing of a bridge and looking down on the water, and when his ticker stopped ticking he keeled over the side."

"How do you figure?"

Eve put out a hand, signaling with her pinky finger to the discolorations on the corpse's skin. "The placement of the bruises. The top half of his body took the brunt of the impact."

Molly ogled Eve in undisguised amazement. Her mouth was slightly open and her chin was angled downward, intensifying her shock. John stared at Eve too; continuing to wonder how on earth there could be a Sherlock reciprocal. However, Sherlock himself appeared as unimpressed as ever.

Eve's phone rang, breaking the moment of silence. Eve said, "Excuse me," and stepped out of the room to answer her phone.

Sherlock watched Eve leave with a focused gaze. When the door shut, he blinked and turned to John without hesitation. "Did she say anything? Did you learn anything?"

"Come again?" John said.

"In the cab, did she give you any clues as to who she is, why she's here?" He spoke hastily.

John shook his head, outwardly confused. "No."

The consulting detective rolled his eyes, "That was your job. You were supposed to get close to her and find out who she really is."

John took on a guarded countenance, his voice no less than astonished. "It takes time, Sherlock. You can't rush these things."

"I gave you time. You had time. How much time do you need?"

John was about to retaliate, but Molly, utterly at a loss, cut in. She said, "I'm sorry, but what is going on? Who is she?" She clutched onto her clipboard like she was mentally preparing herself for the worst.

"Nobody," Sherlock batted her question away as if it was nothing. "She's nobody."

Switching to speak to John, he told him, "I have all I need here. Tell Lestrade to phone me when he has something that won't waste my time. This one wasn't even mildly interesting." Sherlock fixed his collar and stormed out of the room without another word, his coat flaring out behind him.

"I'll explain later," John promised Molly, before chasing after Sherlock.

Molly was left standing by her lonesome, bunglingly attached to her clipboard and unprepared facial expression. "Okay," she swallowed, turning about to cover the cadaver once again.

A few moments later, as Molly was writing some records onto her sheets next to the dead man, Eve walked into the room. Molly looked up at the sound of the door, "Oh um, if you're looking for Sherlock, he and John just left a few minutes ago."

Eve looked behind her, subconsciously raising her hand. "I guess I should have seen it coming."

Molly smiled, "You really can't with those two." She set her pen down to give her full attention to the nameless woman. "Please," she held out her hands, nervously inviting Eve in, "do come in. I—don't get much company…as you might've guessed."

Eve stepped closer to Molly.

"Just a lot of dead people really," Molly said as if thinking. She laughed, skittish. "But at least they listen to me and can't run away when I ramble. I tend to scare people off with my carryings-on and I suppose that's why I don't have many friends." Molly gulped, eyes struck with horror when she realized what she just revealed about herself.

"That makes two of us," Eve smiled, overseeing Molly's social ineptitude.

Molly tried hiding her smile. She was glad someone was trying to relate and not just shrug her off like most people did.

"No you think I'm kidding. I'm not," Eve laughed, now standing across from Molly, the stiff between the two women.

"Why?"

"Because reasons," Eve said quickly and without thought. She opened herself up a bit, realizing she was doing it again. Trying to shut someone out. "I dunno. I have this skill for getting people I care about hurt."

"What d'you mean?"

Eve exhaled, shoving her hands in her pockets. All the weight Evangeline had to carry was hers, and hers alone. She could never share it. She could never be alleviated of it. "Nothing. Never mind. Don't worry about it."

"W-well," Molly spoke up, puckering her lips, "If it should ever become something, I'm always here during the day."

Eve smiled, dual feelings of gratitude and sadness elevating in her chest. "You seem nice, Molly, but you don't even know my name."

"Then tell me your name."

"Kate Nelson." It was better than nothing.

"Molly Hooper," Molly held a hand over the cadaver and Eve shook it.

"Nice to meet you," Eve said, letting go of Molly's hand. Eve turned and left the way she came, the door shutting secure behind her.

She marched down the hall, switching dangerously fast from friendly to predatory. "You have to try a bit harder than that because I'm not going to lie, that was pitiful."

She held up a small black voice recorder. It was about the size of a pill bottle; she had found it taped to the underside of the table where the dead man was.

Sherlock had put it there without anyone's notice when Eve had stepped from the room to answer her cell phone.

Behind her, where the hallway junctured with this one, Sherlock stepped from behind his hiding spot. Eve halted, checking around a corner, and then she turned around. At the other end of the hall, John walked around the corner to stand next to his companion.

Eve marched back to where Sherlock stood and slapped his recorder into his hand as she passed him, and patted his chest a bit rougher than she intended, "Are we done here gentlemen?" Without her answer, she exited through the double doors behind the two men.

A few steps into the next hall, Eve heard Sherlock's voice through the door. "Then tell me, who is Sam?"

Eve stopped suddenly and closed her eyes, knowing she made a mistake. Growing furious, she said, "Shit." Eve stormed back to where Sherlock was waiting for her counteraction.

"I was wrong about you," Eve said, coming face-to-face with him. "At first I thought you were an idiot and then back there I thought you were kind of amazing with your whole enigmatic cool guy thing you got going on—"

"Have."

"What?"

"Have going on."

John glanced at him.

Eve held back the urge to punch Sherlock in his face. "But no, you, you are an asshole."

Untouched by her incensed impugnation, Sherlock assumed. "He's family. You formed an almost codependent bond with him, so that leaves, brother. Am I correct?"

Eve stiffened, squaring her shoulders, reticent. "Yes."

"Of course I am. Aggression is a sign of defensiveness. Human characteristic, not your fault."

"Oh is it?" Eve countered. Her voice fashioned itself into the irrevocable scalpel of meticulous enmity, "You would know a lot about being human."

She knew she seared right through Sherlock Holmes' defenses. She struck him like a hot iron blade through his cold core. Call Sherlock Holmes, one of the most analytical super minds of the century, human? One capable of error, emotion? _Completely ordinary?_

Sherlock was stunned into a strange paralysis. His tongue would not function and his brain stalled. He just stared at this woman, never blinking and utterly immobile. All systems down.

John stared at Eve (he seemed to do that a lot, but so long as she continued to amaze him he could find no remedy to this action). His mental gears were working double time just to process what she said. Not to mention the kind of boundary she seemed to cross with unspeakable ease. This woman was daring.

Eve left for good after that, leaving Sherlock frozen and staring infinitely in the space she had occupied.

"Did she—" Sherlock uttered, his voice low and dazed. No one had done that before.

"Yep," John shifted his weight to one leg, scratching the back of his head.

"She said—"

"She did," John affirmed.

Outside, Eve intended to go back to her apartment to research the gunshot murders. She thought there might be a local legend that would explain everything. Maybe she could whip up a thighbone of a Saint, drench it in virgin blood, and stab the sucker and get this job over with. The quicker, the better.

Eve was a block away from the hospital when a black car pulled alongside her. It crept, rolling slowly behind her. The windows were tinted suspiciously black.

The car braked. A man in sunglasses and a tailored suit got out of the back seat. He held the door open for her and said, "Need a ride?" The voice that came with the suit was misleading. Instead of a deeper one like Eve expected, her ears were met with a more feminine sounding voice. It was not threatening at all.

"No thanks," Eve took a step away.

"I advise you get in the car, Miss."

"I'm sorry, who?"

In the next moment, Eve's arm was pinned roughly behind her back and a white cloth was held over her nose and mouth. Eve struggled and managed to elbow her captor in the stomach, but she was slipping into unconsciousness ever faster now. As she fell backwards into the waiting arms of another suited man, everything darkened around her. Before she blinked out, the two men shoved her into the black automobile.

* * *

Eve floundered her way into consciousness when the drugs wore off. She picked her head up with a start, gaining control of her limbs and focusing her eyesight.

What she noticed first was her location: sitting in a chair, in the middle of a vast empty warehouse. The second thing she noticed was a man standing a few yards, a safe enough distance, in front of her.

He stood leaning on his umbrella as if was a cane and wore a pinstripe suit with a solid maroon tie. A thin gold chain could be seen as the only ornament he wore between the two flaps of his suit jacket that he left open to seem more casual and less domineering. His box-like head was topped with a smidge of brown hair and was combed in such a way to make it seem there was more hair there than there actually was. And there was a smug little smile on his face as he waited for her to reach apprehension.

Eve looked behind her and all around the warehouse. As far as she could tell, the two were alone. Eve stood, subtly feeling for her gun in her jacket and glancing down to her foot where her clip-saber knife was tucked into her boot. "Do you always get your goons to smother people with chloroform or am I just lucky?"

The man blew air out of his nose. The action was meant to play as a short laugh. "You were going to make a scene on a busy street in the middle of London, so I improvised," he said. "Don't worry, my employees did not steal anything from you."

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"That's not important. What I brought you here for of a much more significant affair." He paused here and allowed himself an advantage of two steps towards Eve. "In the past thirty-two hours you have been to no less than two crime scenes that have no link whatsoever, save the way the victims were killed. One of which, you were caught immediate the body, and it has come to my attention that Sherlock Holmes has visited your flat at some ungodly hours in the morning."

"Oh don't worry, we weren't alone. He brought a friend. Nothing irregular happened. He just broke into my apartment and I pointed my gun at him."

"Yes," he drew out the word, "But I have the information to say Sherlock Holmes wouldn't willingly invite a woman of your profession into his area of expertise."

"Mr. Holmes, I think we can both agree there are not many women like me."

"Clearly." He hadn't reacted physically to his name, as it was, but she certainly knew who she was dealing with. Without prior knowledge of him, no less.

"You have quite a reputation," he continued, looking to his shiny black dress shoes, "over there in America. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a fan."

"You couldn't lie to me if you tried," Eve said, "I do it professionally."

The corner of Mycroft's mouth bent into a smile. "How're your brothers?"

"They're just fine, thank you. And if that's your way of threatening me, I promise it won't get you anywhere except at the wrong end of my gun." Eve folded her arms, tall and unafraid of challenge.

"Then we understand each other perfectly," Mycroft replied composedly.

"We do," Eve answered.

"Good." Mycroft stepped closer. He gave his umbrella a twirl. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her now, facing in the opposite direction as she did. "I recommend we keep this between you and I."

Eve asked him, "What? The fact that you know who I am and what I do for a living or this conversation?"

"Good day, Miss Winchester," Mycroft said. He then walked off, "I've arranged for a car to come pick you up in five minutes. Do us all a favor and get in the car without a fuss, hm?"

Mycroft Holmes walked the length of the warehouse floor, spinning his umbrella in his hand, and exited through a door.

"Well," Eve said to herself. "This has turned out to be quite an adventure. What the hell was I thinking? _I'll go to London. That sounds like fun! _I need a beer."

****I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review (: ****


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

After all that took place in the morning hours, Eve decided she'd had enough excitement for the day and went back to her flat. On her way, she picked up some cheap Chinese takeout and when she walked through her door, she took off her jacket and plopped herself on the couch.

Next to the front door, a television set was mounted on the wall. Eve switched this on using the remote on the coffee table and then she fished in her bag. Taking out one of the Chinese noodle boxes, she flipped the tabs open and surfed through the channels on the TV. Having found a channel, Eve stretched out on the couch and began eating. For the time being, she was content with eating noodles with her chopsticks and watching a dumb show that probably came on Disney XD. She couldn't do much else until she heard back from Sam—her research was a futile expedition and he was always the fallback in the family for this sort of thing.

Eve was eating quietly for a while and wolfed down half her carton of noodles in no time. On a brief commercial break, she got up to get a drink from the kitchen.

Then, there was a knock on the door.

Eve shut the cabinet noiselessly and set an empty glass on the counter. Eve slid her right arm to her back, pulling her gun from her belt where it was hidden under her green plaid shirt. As she tiptoed to the door, her thumb clicked down the hammer and she brought the weapon up close to her face, holding it steady with both hands. With her back touching the wall, her left hand reached for the knob. Eve opened it slowly, letting the chain on the door catch.

John saw her gun and a glimpse of uneasy fear crossed his face. "I was just—"

Eve relaxed and shut the door.

John got the impression he should leave, but before he could chicken out the chain was scraping across the bar and the door opened again. Eve's gun was nowhere to be seen.

"Hi," Eve said, hand still on the handle.

"Hi," John looked quite fidgety as he blinked several times more than he needed to. "I was wondering—I mean what I am trying to say is—"

Eve threw a thumb over her shoulder, "I have Chinese."

John clamped his mouth shut.

"You're welcome to join me, John," she said, "Unless you brought Mister Egotistical with you."

"Erm, no, I didn't. Just me."

Eve invited him in, going to the kitchen. "Beer? Water? Coke? I'm not much of a tea drinker, so…"

John stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Water for me, thanks," he replied.

Fixing their drinks, she said, "Wow. I kind of expected Big Ben to blow up or for everyone to collectively gasp and drop their teacups or something. I thought you Brits over here were serious about that kind of thing."

She came into the living room, handed John his glass, and then sat across from him. Eve set her beer on the table and passed John a silver fork (that she grabbed from the kitchen) and a box of Chinese noodles.

"Thank you," he said, clasping the fork and box after setting his cup on the coffee table.

Eve knew now he wasn't most monster types—the silver knocked numerous possibilities right off the chart. John, at least, was human and she had proof to show for it. Without knowing it, John had passed her test.

As if nothing had altered, Eve continued to eat in her previous lounging position while watching TV. John sat back in his light blue chair, unsure of what to say or do, except pick at the food he was offered.

After a few moments, John felt as if she were ignoring him—he didn't take offence to this like any other person would. Sherlock did the same thing countless times. This was just another comparison, John thought.

Eve took a swig of her beer and set it on the floor, close to the couch where she could reach it. She crossed her legs and lifted another bit to her mouth. The movement seemed strangely robotic.

John watched her closely. Despite all Sherlock deduced, all he told him, and all John knows (or rather, doesn't know) about her, John just could not come to terms with the notion that she was a bad guy. Erm, bad woman. She didn't look the killer type. He did not believe it.

"About…how many of those do you have in a week?" John asked slowly, not sure he had the license to quiz about something personal. His eyes flicked to the bottle perspiring on the floor.

Growing bored with the television, Eve turned it off. Eve thought a moment, having never been approached with that question before. "I can give you a ballpark figure. Forty, give or take."

John made a face. That was most definitely an unhealthy amount.

Eve nonchalantly added, "Mostly give."

A moment went by and Eve asked, "What brings you here, Doctor?"

"Right," John sat forward and settled his food on the table. "I just wanted to apologize. I think we got off on the wrong foot and I hope…if it's okay…that we could start over. Just wipe the slate."

Eve joked, "Is that you or the noodles talking?"

Grasping the sincerity of the request, Eve sat up and dropped her feet to the floor. She tossed her trash in the empty paper bag. "What about Sherlock?"

"He's at home. Been sulking in his chair all day. You lowered the boom on him and he couldn't deliver. Frankly, I both applaud and detest you."

Eve raised an eyebrow.

"No one's ever said anything like that to him and it's impressive—your nerve—to serve him up like that. And I suppose the only reason I dislike you is because you made him this sulky and disagreeable on top of how he already is and therefore, you're the one to blame for the new holes he shot in the wall." John let his words sink in a moment before he let a lighthearted smile accent the laugh lines on his face

Eve smiled too. "Everybody needs a rude awakening every now and again. I'm just sorry I inconvenienced you."

"You didn't inconvenience me personally," he said casually, scratching behind his ear, "but you might have to have a talk with my landlady."

"Ah," she nodded.

In the next moment, John's hand dove in his jacket pocket and a slight addled frown had his face. He looked at the screen and while staring unbelievingly, he said, "Which might be a bit sooner than expected."

Eve regarded him with a confused look.

"Sherlock is telling me to come at once to the flat. Says it's urgent."

"What's that have to do with me?"

"He says to bring you. It must have something to do with the case." John got out of the chair, texting his reply to Sherlock, and Eve seized her jacket, following him out the door.

When the pair got to 221B, it was apparent how much John cared for Sherlock in the way he rushed up the steps to their flat. Fervor and worry was very much inlaid in his demeanor.

"Sherlock," John called, stepping into the living space.

Sherlock stood up from the table by the window and exited the tab he had open on his laptop.

"What is it?" John asked.

"Lestrade has just informed me there has been another murder. Shooting. Except this time the murderer has left a little _gift _behind. Either he's slipping or he's more clever than I anticipated. I suspect the former." The gleeful, opinionated lilt in his voice was replaced by bitter distaste when Sherlock breezed past John and Eve. "Oh, it's you," he said to her.

"You told me to come."

"Oh I did, didn't I?" he said to himself, taking his coat and scarf off a hook in the hall.

In the cramped space between the stairs and the doorway, Sherlock quickly readied himself. With a swish of his coat, he flew down the stairs. John and Eve ran after him.

After a ride in the taxicab, the three got out only to be greeted by the ugly face of an old abandoned building. It was swarmed with police cars and gated off with yellow tape, but the structure rough and tumbling over itself. It was once a mill; made of sturdy brick and wood beams but now, after years of neglect, it looked as if the hole-filled roof would cave in at any moment.

Eve said, "Great." Abandoned buildings were always a favorite rendezvous point for everything beyond the veil.

Sherlock side glanced her but said nothing. The three went inside the boundary and soon, Lestrade was in sight.

Meeting them, he said, "What is she doing here?"

"She's with me, Grant," Sherlock said it as if it was the only thing he needed to know.

"Why don't we just invite the whole cavalry," the detective inspector replied, "And it's 'Greg'!"

"I know it is. That's what I said." Sherlock brushed past him and entered the deteriorated building.

Greg watched as he went in, his expression acerbic. When John and Eve went in after, Greg pulled up the rear.

"Down the hall, up the steps, first door on your right," Lestrade instructed, though Sherlock was halfway up the flight of stairs.

Everyone followed him into the designated room. The paint on the walls was faded and a light gray from sun stain and age, and it was peeling heavily towards the floor. The two windows in the room were boarded up with planks of wood—now drooping over the nails that held them in place like sagging fabric and were coated in blackish grime. Mildew amassed in the bottom corners of the room and snaked along the walls where leaky rusting pipes must be behind the walls. The ceiling was cracked; the zigzagging lines stretched out above them like the entire nervous system of the human body. The floor below them was unsound, and suggested this through the hazardous creaks under their feet.

"Watch your step," Lestrade reminded.

At the sound of his voice, another man turned away from the body and looked at Sherlock with antinomy. "Great. Sherlock has brought a whole entourage."

"Anderson," Sherlock's nose scrunched in his annoyance, "why don't you go be bothersome elsewhere?"

Anderson made a face, crossing his gloved arms. "I'm doing my job," he replied sourly.

"Then explain why I'm here." Sherlock jutted out his head, spreading his arms to either side, displaying his whole figure.

Eve smirked and Anderson barreled out of the room like a humiliated schoolgirl.

Greg had to hop out of the Anderson's way. He said, "Sherlock, was that really necessary?"

"Yes. He was doing an awful lot of talking. Brainless people always manage to do that even in the worst of times." Sherlock averted his attention to the body in the chair.

It was positioned exactly how one would sit—feet flat on the floor, arms on the armrests—except the head was slack and hanging off the back of the chair. The man's mouth was wide open. A single bullet hole left a tunnel through his forehead and out the back of his head.

The body itself belonged to a lawyer and part-time golfer (judging by the gold tie pin he wore). He was dressed in a white dress shirt, tie, black waistcoat and trousers, and wingtip shoes. The logical incentive to kill him would have been for his money. But something told Eve that was wrong…there was something more to it.

Sherlock circled the corpse and Lestrade gave him a pair of latex gloves. After pulling them on, Sherlock touched the victim's fingers, inspected them, and then glanced over the blood pool on the floor behind the chair. His eyes swam over the bloodstains all down the back of the man's head, neck, and vertebrae, panning up to the source of the blood loss. A small round hole where the bullet exited the brain—Sherlock turned, following the invisible pathway with his eyes—and then delivered itself to the wall, where the bullet tried to excavate it. Sherlock went back to the dead man, scanning his skin, the trim and stitches of his clothing, and the small scar on his neck. He brought out his magnifying glass and knelt on all fours, and swept the instrument over the shoes and pant legs.

"Any ideas?" Lestrade questioned, after a minute of watching him work. He had his hands on his hips.

Sherlock snapped the magnifying glass shut and got nimbly to his feet. Of course he had an idea. When didn't he?

"Our victim died about three hours ago after much struggling—" his brow knotted as he tuned to the body again, "Obviously it was a losing battle. The scuffmarks along his oxfords and the slight impressions of the same color on the floor suggest he was dragged. He was kidnapped shortly after—I gauge a time frame of about ten minutes—if not immediately after he left work for the day on his way home for an evening with his new wife."

"How do you know that?" Lestrade asked.

Sherlock motioned as he answered, "He had enough time to remove his jacket but not enough time to phone for help." Sherlock pointed at the man's left ring finger, "First polish and no tan lines where he wears his band. Indication: newlywed. His cologne is of the Tom Ford variety—very expensive and not just for the workplace. Now," he brought his hands together, "where's the jacket? His phone and wallet should be there."

"In the closet there," Greg motioned to the door in the corner. "We left it how we found it. I wanted to wait because I thought it odd. Someone just leaving a man's jacket in there—must've brought their own hanger, too."

Sherlock stepped over to the door. He slid a hand in the small crack, and pulled. The door groaned as it opened toward him. He stepped back and forward again, almost fully in the closet. Then, he craned his head to look this way and that, touching the inside walls and the door trim. At long last, he planted his cryptic gaze on the black suit jacket hanging on a solitary hanger in the confined space. After inspecting the outside, Sherlock dug through the pockets and withdrew two items. A touch screen phone and a wallet. He passed these to Lestrade and continued to search the jacket.

"Are you aware of this?" Sherlock retracted a crisp, clean envelope.

"No." Lestrade replied, "Is it addressed to someone?"

"John," Sherlock said, still observing the front side of the envelope as if he was deciphering code, "Does the name 'Evangeline Winchester' mean anything to you?"

Wait a minute. That was her name. Why was Eve's name on an envelope in a dead man's jacket? She had to convince herself in a flash that she really did hear her name and that she wasn't delusional.

John shook his head, "No? Maybe his wife?"

"No," Sherlock shot that idea down, "This was written by a woman. Cheap Paper Mate pen. Envelope they had in a box collecting dust. So obviously this was a last minute decision. Something our man was mulling over for a while, so it must be of some gravity, whoever this Evangeline is. This also proves our man isn't working alone. By this point, he probably has a whole team of ignoramuses ready to obey his every whim."

Eve gulped. She was going to have to spill something now. If she held back any longer, later on she could be a suspect and to an even worse extent, incarcerated. To have her image in papers and on TVs everywhere would be the end of her. They would come for her.

"John, Sherlock," Eve said normally, "Can I speak to you both in the hall for a minute?" Eve left the room.

Sherlock and John followed, interested and conspicuously curious. Lestrade stayed behind, noticeably lost.

Once out of range of other ears, Eve faced the two gentlemen. With perfect sobriety Eve said, "You wanted to know who I am. Wish granted. My name is Evangeline Winchester."

"You're joking," John said, "Or you're lying again. Which is it?"

"Please, call me Eve."

Sherlock's eyes searched hers. He was intent on extracting information. The thought that maybe she was posing as this Evangeline Winchester occurred to him. But then, why would she do that?

"Sherlock, tell me she's lying again," John told him

"I—" Sherlock looked puzzled, then shocked, and then finally defeated, "can't."

John gave him a look.

"She lies for a living, I'll give you that, but this time she's telling the truth. Tell me," he looked to Eve, "why do you choose now to tell me who you are?"

"Because whatever is in that little white envelope," she glanced to the object in his hand, "is something only I have the ability to understand."

The look in his eyes shifted when he asked, "What makes you assume?"

"Because I know when people like you are in way over your head," Eve replied. "If you insist on reading the letter, all I want is for you to let me see it as well."

"Winchester is a fitting name. Like the gun," Sherlock commented. He rotated the thin envelope in between his hands, his fingers gliding over the smooth flat surface. "Suppose I let you read it. You say you are the only one who can interpret it."

"I am."

He nodded once, "And suppose, for a moment, you are. Will you enlighten me if I give it to you?"

This was a major thing. On Sherlock's part, up until this point, he knew only so much about this woman. Now he knew her name. Yes, it was one question answered, but twenty more had arisen in its place. He could not pin her down. He was incapable, unable, and it infuriated him. And this envelope, whatever it held, might be the key to figuring her out. But to say _he _wouldn't be able to interpret it for himself? To _enlighten _Sherlock Holmes? Bah! They hadn't even opened it yet!

On Eve's part, all she had the capability of thinking about was who was behind the letter and why would the writer so openly; willingly suck Sherlock and John into it. It was obvious that this is what they were doing—otherwise, Eve herself would have been confronted by at least a few demons by now. Someone was planning this out, trying to see her next move, make her scramble. One thing was certain, if nothing else. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were both very much human and very much in danger. And once again, the fault was to rest on her shoulders.

"If you can handle it," Eve vowed.

Sherlock gave the object one last glance. He closed his mouth, realizing his next action, and handed her the envelope.

With unsteady hands, Eve opened the envelope and took out a sturdy plastic rectangle—folded and creased. She gave the empty envelope to John beside her and unfolded the mysterious thing.

It was a photograph; the size of any other you'd spy in a family album. It lacked color, excepting black and white, and the image was of Eve. It was just Eve—as she left the McCradys residence, hands in her jacket pockets, looking across the street before she safely crossed it. Te thing that inspired something dark and lethal, and even afraid, within her were the marks slashed through her eyes. It was as if someone took to it like one would with a lottery scratch off ticket. The coin was her blinder and part of her was erased. The rest of her remained intact and unmarred.

Eve turned the picture over. A missive written in a small scrawl of capital letters was there, awaiting her eye:

_My, my, little bird, you've truly outdone yourself now. Big brothers are nowhere to be seen, but you aren't even trying. Should I be worried or is this opportunity?_

The way Eve's face set, the harbor of undiscerned emotion that it was, made Sherlock stop to look again. Eve gave the photograph to him.

John looked over Sherlock's shoulder. Cautiously, he said, "If I didn't know better I'd say this is a threat letter."

"You'd be correct." Eve confirmed.

"Any idea who could have done this?"

"His name is Cyrus Sloan. He and I go way back. And since he's been following me pretty much since I got here, that means he's seen me hanging around you two. That also means he has you on a list."

"A list?" John asked.

"Hit list," Sherlock muttered. "One of which," he spoke up, meeting eyes with Eve's, "you found yourself at the very top."

Eve nodded. "He likes lists," she said it as if it was a casual fact.

"And threatening notes," Sherlock concluded.

"He thinks it's more dramatic."

"Hm. Clearly." Sherlock took the envelope from John and slid the photograph into it. "Excuse me," he said, turning upon his toe and walking back into the room where Lestrade waited. He and Lestrade exchanged a few words.

Eve looked to the dusty dirt covered floor. "He will do it again."

John peeled his eyes from Sherlock and landed them on Eve.

"Kill. And we won't know until he's already done it. I could trace a trail, if there was one—I'm not even sure how he does it," Eve said. Sloan was a demon. Demons left sulfur trails, but Sloan hadn't left a speck.

"Well that's why Sherlock is on the case," John said as if it would mollify every doubt Eve had.

Eve blew air out of her nose, an almost-laugh.

"He'll figure it out."

Sherlock paced towards John and Eve, one hand in his coat pocket. His gaze stuck to the grain of the wood flooring and then shot up to his friend momentarily before it jumped to Eve. He said, "Evangeline Winchester, you are, as of this moment, in the Scotland Yard Witness Protection Program."

Eve crossed her arms, guarded. "And who says _I'm _the one needing protection?

Sherlock slipped a hand into his jacket and withdrew his phone. He began typing away with his eyes centered on-screen. "Formally? Legally? Lestrade. But I did prompt him with the idea, so. Me. I did. I'm sure you could have figured it out, considering you've gone from suspect to a prospective target in less than twenty-four hours." He paused, lifting his head and knotting his brow as he asked her, "Is that a personal record for you?"

"Five minutes," she amended, with a slight tilt of her head.

He made a short humming noise and he bobbed his head once, as if he was not interested. Internally, he was accumulating all this newfound knowledge on her. Several possibilities of her unknown profession scrolled through his head like numbers on an odometer. A second later, after exterminating a myriad of options on his mental turns dial, he blinked back into the physical world. He had come to the answer. Sherlock had successfully picked her apart and isolated her to her smallest components. He was sure of it. She was unriddled, unlocked, and he had won. Revealing her would just be the icing on the cake.

Sherlock grinned to himself but it was gone as soon as Lestrade came up to them.

Lestrade said, "I'm sure Sherlock already informed you of your current position, Miss Nelson."

Eve's eyes flicked to Sherlock. "Excuse me?"

"Your twin is Evangeline Winchester," Lestrade went on, feeding her what Sherlock said to him.

Eve couldn't believe it. Was this Sherlock's way of protecting her or just another means to an end?

Lestrade continued, "You'll be housed and protected by," he paused, regret in his pained grimace, "two of my best men."

"Who are these two?" Eve asked. Sarcasm was heavy on her tongue when she added, "I'd like to thank them upfront."

"Very well," Sherlock swung his arms behind his back to stand at parade rest. "John and I are waiting."

John looked to Sherlock. He obviously was not informed of this decision beforehand.

Eve clenched her jaw.

Sherlock enjoyed her vexation like a child enjoyed Saturday morning cartoons. His smile irritated Eve to no end.

"At any rate, I'll take your case," Sherlock's eyes glided overhead to the sturdy structural beams and then he set them back on Eve. "You're in good hands, Kate." He stressed the 't' in her fake name.

"Afternoon," Sherlock called, leaning backwards into a turn.

Lestrade stared after him. "I'm not sure he really gets the meaning of that word," he thought out loud. Then he turned to John, "Right, well. See you later then."

"Yeah," John said, "Kate?"

"Right behind you," Eve said and she followed him out.

Going outside, it became apparent that Sherlock had left without them.

Looking down both ends of the street, John accepted Sherlock's departure. He assumed he did it, again, for the sake of discovering the answers to questions that seemed to begin and end with Eve.

"I'm going to go home," Eve stated, starting to walk down the street. She could find her way home well on her own.

"I'm sorry, but Lestrade said—" John threw a thumb over his shoulder.

Eve turned, taking backward steps. "Look, if you want to hang with me, that's fine, but you have to realize by now that 'authorities' is just a suggestive term for me." Eve turned around and continued walking. "You coming or not?"

Not sparing a moment to consider, he jogged to catch up to her.

They walked together, satisfied with roaming the streets, all the while John tried to make polite conversation.

"Eve," he spoke, tasting the name. "Winchester."

Eve looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"I like it. It's a nice name."

"Thank you."

"So, Sam. Is his last name Winchester too?"

"It is."

"Do you have any other brothers or sisters?"

"Two more brothers."

John nodded. This was easier than he thought. "I have a sister. Haven't spoken to Harry in ages. Sherlock said you and Sam were close. Is it like that with your other brothers?"

Eve answered, "Yeah."

"So where are they?" John asked, "I mean, why are you here?"

Eve sucked in a breath, burying her hands into her pockets. "You're a soldier, John. A soldier who has seen and been through things no other man would even think about. Things other people can't even imagine. In this case, you and I have a lot in common. Let's just say, I'd do anything to keep my family safe, even if it means I can't see them for a long time."

John tried to grasp what she was saying. She'd been hurt—God knows how badly—and her brothers ended up taking some of the bill. "Does it keep you awake at night?"

"Does it for you?"

_Yes, _John thought. "Not so much anymore. Not since Sherlock."

Eve smiled, "You're a lucky one then. Keep hold of him, John. Whatever it is you two have, it's special. You don't need a rocket scientist to figure that out."

A smile snuck onto his face and he had to look away. "What about you? What of your brothers? Where do they come in?"

"They're the reason I'm still walking, if that's what you mean. It's just, what I went through, it's something that sticks with you. It's something you can't forget, which is something I'm sure you can relate to. Most nights I lie awake wondering where I'll be in one, two, three years. Other nights, I wonder if I'll even make it that far. Just as any other person would."

After a moment, John replied, "Yeah, I know the feeling. It gets better though, after a time. You won't need to sleep with a gun under your pillow and you can sit through an entire meal without any flashbacks. It'll be fine, just fine. You just haven't found the right person yet."

"Yeah, I'm sure you're right." In all her years and experience, problems and terrors didn't just whisk themselves away and suddenly you were okay again. They mounted, built on previous pain, and dragged you down to a place no length of rope would reach in and pull you out of the dark. It sucked you in and injected itself into your veins.

"Thank you," Eve said. But that didn't mean she thought John to be wrong. She meant what she said.

Minutes passed and the only sounds that crossed between John and Eve were those of their footfalls on the sidewalk. Until Eve saw the man out of the corner of her eye.

"John," she said quietly. "Five o'clock, hoodie, been on our tails. Have you noticed?"

Looking over his shoulder, John answered, "No." He turned back around only to see Eve had changed course and walked down an alley between two brick buildings. John followed. His soldier instincts were kicking in.

Eve looked side-to-side, mapping out her plan of evasive action while she walked forward with calculated strides. "How do you feel about taking afternoon showers?"

"I haven't really put much thought into—" John stopped short when his eyes laid upon Eve.

She had climbed up on top of a dumpster and now held open one of the lid flaps.

"What," John stared, "are you doing?"

"Get in."

"What?"

"Get in. The dumpster."

John puffed his cheeks full of air and let it go. He murmured, "Pretty, daring, and a nutter."

"Just get in," Eve said, not having heard what he said. She then took two agile steps to the side and leapt off the garbage bin. She deposited herself on the dangling fire escape ladder. With her added weight, the ladder dropped. Eve was up two rungs when she said, "If you trust me, get in. if not, run, but I can't guarantee it'll get you very far."

John begrudgingly stepped up, using the ledge on the side of the bin as a foothold, and dove headfirst into the trash. He pulled the lid down over his head and sat quietly in the dark, rank dumpster, sitting on a heap of God-knows-what. He held his jacket collar over his nose to block the strong odor. He could make out the sounds of fast-approaching footsteps, and then Eve's shout.

"When you're ready come and get it, dickbag!" Eve shouted over the edge of the fire escape railing.

A man looked up at her from the street, his facial expression obscure due to distance. Once she started again to the roof, the figure ascended the ladder and stairs after her.

When she looked below her, she could see her plan was working—the man was pursuing her. She quickened her pace and soon disappeared onto the roof of the building.

The roof was a bare slab of concrete with a few ventilation units off to the side and a pyramid-like window in the center of it. This wasn't what she expected, but it would have to do.

The sounds of the man after her got louder on the metal bars of the second ladder, and then, he was on the roof. His hoodie was a dark blue color and his jeans were frayed at the bottoms. Was he a demon? Only one way to find out…

"Christo," Eve said.

The man cringed and his eyes turned a glassy ebony, colorless.

Eve pulled out her angel blade, twirled it once readily in her hand, and took her stance. "You demons sure do pick good-looking vessels."

The demon was ticked. He took a few steps toward her, and then to the left, circling her.

"Sometimes," she added. Eve gave the demon her dissatisfied once-over.

This set him off. In a blink, Eve was thrown to the ground, her body biting into the concrete as she slid. Her back shot up with pain when she rolled into a ledge. She stirred and groaned, picking up her head. Eve's gaze fell over the edge of the low wall. Six stories down and she missed it by a hair. Thank architects for low bearing walls, folks.

She made a face and scooted away from the edge as quickly as she could. But then, she was seized by two large hands and lifted off her feet.

"Normally I don't let guys get this touchy-feely until the second date, but I have a good feeling about this. This could be something beautiful," Eve said.

The demon's eyes were glazed over black, but somehow that didn't cripple the affect of the eye roll. "Shut _up,"_ the demon said.

"Eve?" John's voice carried over the rooftop.

Eve glanced to John and the demon turned to do the same.

"Gladly," Eve said, sinking her fingers into his shoulders and throwing her head into the demon's head.

The demon unhanded her and focused on his head trauma only a second before he realized Eve was running towards her angel blade. He growled and threw a hand up at John. The demon suspended John up in the air.

"Stop right there or the army doctor goes over the side," the demon said, his arm still extended.

Eve stopped only a few feet from her weapon. She froze, arm reaching for her blade, and then she retracted her hand and stood up straight. She looked to John.

The fear that was lodged in John Watson's eyes as he was anchored, much to his disbelief, a few feet in the air, proved to be the drive for Eve's next move. It came down to this: His life or hers.

His. Any day.

"What do you want?" Eve asked, "You're dealing with a big fish now, buddy."

"Big fish?" the demon laughed. "I'm the one with all the power here, Winchester. Your wings are clipped."

John did all he could to move, but he couldn't. What the hell is happening? "Eve, I can't move! I can't bloody move!"

"That may be true," Eve told the demon. "But my brothers don't have powers either, and hell, they do pretty well." She inched closer to the demon, carefully stepping around the glass skylight. She glanced into the window. Bingo.

"And I figure," Eve made a face as if considering an idea, "I do just as good too."

"You call this good? Fawning over the pathetic life of a human when yours is worth so much more?"

"Let's get one thing straight. My life is worth no more than anybody else's."

The demon smiled. "That's not what Cyrus thinks."

Eve stood about an arm's length away from him now. Two steps back and she would fall through the glass skylight. In fact, that was precisely the plan.

"You wanna know what I think about Sloan?" Eve asked.

Hereupon, Eve lunged at the demon. John saw a flash of silver streak in the sunlight as she dove at him and suddenly, the two tumbled backwards and crashed through the skylight.

John immediately dropped to the ground. He grunted as he collided with the roof and rolled onto his side. His eye caught a glint of silver a few feet away from him.

The demon and Eve hurtled down several stories, through the open core of a long, winding stairwell. Glass rained down on them and cut at skin and cloth. Their clothes flapped and beat against them as gravity surmounted and the rock hard floor drew ever nearer. A promise of broken bones, and even death, awaited her with the tile below them.

In the seconds that they were still airborne, the demon looked down to the angel blade imbedded in its stomach, and then her hand still gripping the handle. Disbelief replaced anger in his expression. Subsequently, he stopped trying to free himself from her tight grip of her other arm around his neck.

"I always have a backup, asshole," Eve said. And with one more thrust of her arm, the knife clicked the switch and the demon flickered and burnt out. Eve pulled the knife out of the body and let it slip from her grasp.

Just before she hit, she pulled the body closer and positioned it below her. And then, she smashed into the ground.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

John ran to the skylight and peered down the large hole in the glass. At the bottom of a lengthy rectangular stairwell lay the two sprawled bodies of Eve and the mysterious hooded man.

Fear was courted by the adrenaline pumping through his veins and all of a sudden, he was back in Afghanistan. His comrade was down, shot—no not shot—probably dead—no, most likely dead. Six stories? He needed to get to her. If she was hanging on by a cord, he needed to be the one to revive her. John didn't know how or why, but he knew Eve had saved his life by taking that man down…and if she took her own life in the process? Could John live with another war memory? Another fallen comrade? No. She wasn't going to die. Not on his watch. But the fall…

All of these thoughts, all of these fears sped through John Watson's head as he slid down the ladder and descended the fire escape. His heart pounded profusely and he soon forgot the dull ache in his shoulder. He ran around the building to the front door—it was an office building for small businesses and it was closed, bolted, locked. Luckily, the door was made of glass.

Thinking only of Eve, John brought the cuff of his jacket over his knuckles on his right hand. He wound his arm back and punched straight through the door. Glass shattered. John put his arm through the hole and unlocked the mechanism on the inside of the door. He opened it and ran into the building, looking ahead past the doors on either side of him and came to a grand open staircase.

The light from the midday sun shone in glorious rays on her unmoving body. The way the light hit the broken pieces of glass around her and the man alike made the scene shimmer with an almost surreal beauty. John almost froze. Almost.

"Eve!" John shouted, moving towards her.

Out of nowhere, John was pulled by the back of his jacket, near the collar, and thrown backwards. He glided across the polished white floor and rolled to a halt. It took him a second or two to comprehend that there was a man crouched over Eve's body. He was going to touch her; harm her, John thought.

And just as any soldier would, John reacted. His gun was out in a flash and from where he lay, he threatened, "Leave her alone, or I shoot."

The man ignored him and bent closer toward Eve. John fired and the noise resounded. The man continued as if he didn't have a bullet in his right shoulder. The man pulled Eve into his arms and placed a hand to her cheek.

Without forewarning, Eve's eyes opened. "Cas," she breathed, and pulled him to her for a hug.

John was confused. This man knew her. Eve knew him. If anyone could mentally go '_?_' John was the right contender for it—the poster child even.

Then Eve's voice rose and she pushed the man away, "Cas! What the hell? What're you doing here?"

The man she called Cas stood and helped her to her feet. "Dean asked me to watch over you."

John did not understand. Eve was acting as if she didn't just fall several stories through a roof. She was moving and talking just fine. Eve should have broken bones! Eve should not have survived the fall!

Eve set her hand on her hip. "He would." Her eyes deposited on her bloody angel blade and she walked a few steps to retrieve it.

"Dean is just trying to protect you," Cas said.

"I don't need protection. I have everything under control," she remarked.

Cas looked up to the skylight above them and to the fragments of glass underfoot. He nodded, "I can see that."

John slowly got to his feet. "Can somebody clue me in as to what the _hell _is going on?" His voice rose and grit on itself as he spoke because he wasn't making enough time to pause and breathe properly. His face had a pink tinge to it. He said, "I _shot_ you," he jabbed a finger in the air towards Castiel and then did the same for Eve, "And _you _fell several stories to your death!"

John swiveled around, overwhelmed with everything he witnessed. He faced Cas and Eve again, spit flying from his mouth when he shouted, "Am I dreaming? Hallucinating? Did you drug me? Sherlock did that once and I wasn't happy. I feel like I'm missing something here. Should I expect him to get up and start acting like you didn't stab him with your weird knife?"

Eve looked to where John had motioned to the demon on the floor. She wiped the blood off her blade using the hem of her shirt and put it back in her jacket. "Uh no. He's staying dead."

"For the record, that 'weird knife'," Cas quotated with his fingers, "was the instrument used to save your life so I expect you to pay a little more respect to its correct name."

Eve piped up, "And its correct name is 'weird knife'. Thank you Cas. I can take care of it."

John could not handle this. This went beyond everything he knew beyond everything science and fact stood for!

"I'm going to get Sherlock," John announced, going for the door.

Eve jumped at the name. "Oh my God. John, call Sherlock right now—no. Cas, zap us there."

Cas touched Eve's forehead and she was gone.

John looked back, about to say something else to Eve. Instead he saw that Eve and this Cas character had vanished. He turned around, only getting a glimpse of Cas' hand lowering onto him before he felt he'd been kicked in the nether regions.

John was suddenly halfway up on a staircase and after he recovered from the uncivil pain, he realized this was 221B. Then he heard shouts.

"Sherlock! Sherlock!" It was Eve.

John followed her voice into the flat. He found her racing from room to room and then followed her into the kitchen. She rummaged through the cabinets, looking as if she was searching for something vital.

"Don't you people have—oh for Pete's sake," Eve grabbed a container of salt.

"Eve Winchester, stop! Stop right there."

Eve froze, noticing he had his gun aimed at her.

"Or I will shoot," John promised. He didn't like the idea of harming someone who had potentially saved his life, but after all his experience, he would go to great lengths to get the job done. Right now, that job was to get the answers he needed.

"You know the guy you just met?" She questioned, gesturing with the salt container in her hand. "The one in the trench coat? You know what he did? He healed me. Brought me back. He'll do it again."

"Then I'll shoot him."

Eve made a face, eyeing him like, 'That again?'

John tilted his head and shook it with his changing facial expression as his reaction. "I'll stab him with your knife thing you have in your pocket."

"Killing him doesn't make him dead, John. It just makes him angry. It's like that with all my brothers, actually." She said it as if she just thought about it herself.

John adjusted his white knuckled grip on his weapon.

"If you put it in perspective, I'd be pretty pissed too. And then you'd have three extremely pissed, extremely armed men after you for the rest of your life. You wouldn't last long. Not even a few minutes."

"I've been in the army. I'm trained."

"Not for this, you're not."

"And you are?"

Eve's tone was merciless and insensitive. "After all you've seen, you tell me. You and I, what we're doing, is just wasting time. Sherlock could be in trouble. Now if you wanna keep me from saving another life, be my guest. Keep pointing that at me and I'll keep shaking this salt around like and idiot."

John lowered his weapon.

The front door opened and Eve ran towards the sound of it slamming shut.

Sherlock came walking up the steps. When he saw Eve, he said, "Oh good, company. I've always—" Sherlock coughed and took a step back when Eve threw a handful of salt on him.

"—despised company," Sherlock finished. "What exactly was the intent of that?"

John was behind them during the whole exchange. "Yeah, I'm not even sure—"

"John, put the kettle on. We'll be here a while. Miss Winchester has some explaining to do," Sherlock said, fully blocking Eve's path with his body.

"Don't," Eve swung a hand to point at John. Then she turned back to Sherlock, the two movements twisting into one fluid one. "No," she told him. "Do you have any more salt?"

"What?"

"Salt!" She held up the box of salt in her hand, "Sodium. The white stuff that goes on French fries!"

Sherlock made a face, "Why would y—"

"No actually I think Mrs. Hudson might have some in the bakery downstairs," John cut in.

"Thank you John, and if you would be so kind to get as much of it as you can carry that'd be great." Eve ran back up the steps and passed John in the doorway.

"What have you done," Sherlock said, "I said to find out who she is, not make her absolutely loony."

"What have I—?" John scoffed, resisting the urge to argue. "Come on Sherlock," he started down the steps.

Sherlock stepped in front of him and then did so again when John sidestepped to the left. "No."

"Sherlock." The way John's eyes flared up would make anyone feel intimidated. "Do as she says or I will make you."

"Why? You smell terrible. Have you been sitting in a dust bin?" Sherlock responded, noting John's serious minacious tone. He said it as a simple question would normally be asked, despite John's readiness to do whatever it took to make Sherlock obey.

"Because she saved my life. Because I trust her," John replied, "and you should, too."

With those words, John shoved passed his friend and went to do as he was instructed. Surprised as any high-functioning sociopath could be, Sherlock watched John go. And then, after a minute of quiet contemplation, he did the same as John.

The two men returned with sacks of salt sitting in both sets of their arms like football players would carry footballs. The two men found Eve in the kitchen, having shoved a number of the countless bottles, test tubes, and beakers off to the side on the wooden table in the center of the room.

Sherlock watched her work speculatively as John asked, "What do we do with them?

Eve held up a hand, silencing him, and carried on. She had several bowls of all shapes and sizes before her. All of them were filled with what Sherlock assumed was ordinary water. In her hand was a beaded necklace that had a crucifix at the end of it. With which she muttered some words—Sherlock recognized it as Latin right away—and then dropped the necklace in the bowl furthest from her.

She turned to John and Sherlock. "Alright kids, I'm gonna teach you the first thing you need to know about your current situation. That salt and this water is your best friend. I want you to go to every door, every window, every way of entry into this apartment and put down a solid line of salt on the inside of it. No breaks. No cutting corners."

Sherlock had had enough of this. "This is ludicrous," he said, setting the salt beside him on the counter. He turned to go, "I will not—"

The edge of Eve's knife nearly shaved the skin off Sherlock's ear when it rotated by him at a speed only approached by lightning, and sunk tip first into the frame of the doorway. The thunk the knife made in the wood caused Sherlock's eyes to double in size. His gaze lingered on the honed contour of the clip-saber, realizing she nearly sliced half his head off.

"I won't kill you," Eve said simply, "But they won't think twice. If you want to life, you have to do as I say. We have to work together."

What she said prompted Sherlock's eyebrows to rise.

"Look at me, being all poetic. It has a sort of Band of Brothers vibe to it," Eve remarked, continuing with her incantations over the bowls of water.

Leaving the knife infixed in the wall, Sherlock accompanied John to lay down the salt. When they were done, Eve inspected. They concluded they passed when she set them up with two spray bottles full of clear liquid.

"Hope you didn't need the Clorox for something," Eve commented.

Sherlock scrunched his nose with a small shake of his head. "Nah."

She asked them to follow her into the living room. Then, Eve dumped the rest of a half-empty sack of salt in the unimpaired form of a circle in the middle of the room.

When Eve was done, she said, "Stand in this circle, John, and people like Hoodie can't touch you." Eve ran to the door, "I'll be back."

"Wait, where are you—" John said. He took a step after her.

"Stay," Eve pointed at him. "Circle. Stay," she looked at Sherlock. And then she was gone.

John stepped into the circle, awaiting Sherlock to do the same. "Well I certainly don't," he paused, "feel any different."

"Of course you don't," Sherlock sneered, "You're just standing in a ring of salt!"

"Yeah, why aren't you?"

"Salt, John! It's not exactly something a sane person would do, now is it?"

"Well you're one to talk. Just yesterday you put snake venom in blood to time how fast it solidified and which one's the fastest paralytic. And you fried a corpse's tongue in the bloody kitchen!"

"Well he wasn't using it!" Sherlock was about to turn around, but halfway through the rotation, he turned back again. "Why should I trust her? She hasn't given me a reason to. She hasn't given any of us definite reason to, except you claim she saved your life. How did she accomplish that?"

"She jumped off a building," John deadpanned, "Well, she jumped into it. Six stories. She should've died."

"And why didn't she? Does she have some magical healing pepper to go with her magical repellent salt?"

"No. At least I don't think she does. But she does have a crazy man in a trench coat."

What on earth was John even saying? He was speaking in tongues that were more outlandish than when Sherlock went on his deducing rampages. John was not well and Eve Winchester was behind it all.

"And where is that man now?" Sherlock asked.

"I don't know. He just, sort of, disappeared." John made a face, probably realizing how crazy he sounded. "I know it sounds mental but you have to believe me."

Sherlock gave no indication that he was trying.

Fed up and remembering something from earlier, John dug in his jacket. "Here," he handed Sherlock one of the silver knives Eve had on her person during the duration of the battle upon the roof.

Sherlock looked at the object John bequeathed to him. It was the most peculiar object he was ever given, that much Sherlock was positive. It was a long, double-edged dagger made entirely out of what he presumed to be silver. At the base of the hilt, it was wide and took on a triangular shape, and as the blade grew in length, its width shrunk smaller and smaller until it was no larger than the tip of a needle.

"She used one of these to take the man down. He'd been following us and I didn't notice. Eve did. She stabbed him and pulled him down into the building because he threatened to kill me," John said.

Sherlock turned it in his hand. He never saw anything like it. It didn't daunt him, this dagger, but it did spark wonderment and curiosity.

Eve returned a few minutes later. As she came up the steps, Sherlock superfluously put an unbent leg out over the ring of salt and stepped into the circle. Eve stopped in the doorway, carrying a brown duffel bag, and she and Sherlock exchanged glances.

He stared at her with wide eyes. His tall, high-flown posture and his hands folded behind his back enhanced Sherlock's look and made him seem as if he was waiting on her. Awaiting her remark of sarcastic disbelief.

It never came. Instead, Eve walked passed them and dropped her bag on the table by the window. She unzipped it and dove in the bag.

Sherlock stepped up behind her, paying no mind to physical proximity when he loomed over her shoulder. He observed as she opened a box of questionable looking, abnormally shiny silver bullets. He watched her as if unloading her gun and stuffing the new bullets in was some unseen spectacle.

"What's in the bag?" John asked, the question more for Sherlock than for Eve.

"An arsenal," Sherlock answered. "It appears she is armed for war."

Eve snapped the magazine up into her gun. "As well as people's privacy, you neglect personal space boundaries."

"All for good reason it seems," he replied, beholding the slew of assorted weapons in her duffel bag. In it, there was a 12 gauge double barrel sawed off, a Smith and Wesson 5906, Ithaca 37, a Heckler and Koch, and several knives—a particular favorite was the bowie knife.

"Hm," Eve said, tucking her gun in her belt. She was more concentrated on her work. "Get me my knife, please."

"You mean the one you threw at my head?"

"You were being difficult."

"So many have taken it upon themselves to inform me that I am worse things."

"Hm," Eve said again. She turned around to busy herself with something else, but Sherlock gave her no leave to move. She leaned back on the table, knowing he was not going to step back to give her adequate foot space. Eve placed her hands over the edge of the table and she stared.

In the inconsiderable inch between Sherlock and Eve, the tension grew and John was left to be an awkward third party observer in the silent standoff.

After a moment, Sherlock let his bottom jaw fall open as he slowly said, "Who are you?"

Eve narrowed her eyes when John's phone rang, splicing the brief noiselessness in half. Sherlock dragged his gaze away from hers and John answered his cell phone.

"Hello? Greg, hi. Yep, no, we're all fine." John answered questions inaudible to Sherlock and Eve.

Sherlock felt Eve stiffen at the mention of Lestrade. She stood.

"Send me the address. We're on our way," John said, ending the call and shoving his phone in his jacket. "There's been another murder," John explained. His strides toward the door picked up into a jog.

Eve and Sherlock ran after him.

The consulting detective exclaimed with an ecstatic grin on his face, "Twice in one day? How delightful."

* * *

The taxi ride to the designated location was long and the silence that buffered the interior of the car only made it more so. By the time they reached Lestrade's address of work, it was nearly three thirty-five in the afternoon, and it being in the middle of November, the first suggestions of the upcoming evening could be seen by the dimming of the sky.

The cab dropped the three off in the front lawn of a cottage way out in the middle of nowhere. Eve and John were about to verbalize their befuddlement as they looked upon the simple building and its folksy vegetable garden. There was not a crime scene here because there weren't any police cars topped with spiraling lights or any uniforms walking around.

"Sherlock, where—" John began to ask.

"Dunno," Sherlock uttered, giving the cottage a quick inspection before he got bored with it and looked away.

The cottage stood on land that was wide and rich with willowy green hills. On one face, specifically the one facing the cottage, the land was bristled with tall forest trees. The woods were dense; the trees allowed little to no light to pass through their upsurging limbs. The image of it brought back memories and flashbacks to a more dire time of Eve's past. She knew under that layer of twittering songbirds and the amicable guise, there was always the possibility of something dark and deadly lurking there.

She didn't expect to be right but the instant the parallel beams of a car's headlights crossed her line of sight, she realized the forest had hidden something: A dirt road cloaked in shadow. The mouth of the road could barely be seen by itself, but as soon as the gray car rolled onto the paved asphalt in front of the unlikely trio, it could be seen without delay.

The car stopped and Lestrade got out of the passenger side. Donovan was at the wheel.

Lestrade said, "Get in. The site's back here." He swung his head to motion behind him. The way he said it was grim, as if he had seen something, something terrible, and he could not make sense of it. He then looked to Sherlock a second before he got back in the car. It was a silent but understood plea.

The three stepped forward—Sherlock ducked his head under a stray tree branch and Eve and John hopped over some thorny vine bushes. They climbed into the car, onward to the crime scene.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived. Where they stopped, the trees had thinned out, permitting enough elbowroom for everyone at the locale. Standing spotlights were set up all around and small yellow numbered cards were set at different points in the prickly overgrown grass. Police tape circumscribed the murder scene. Anderson and another person from the forensics team were there, scrounging for prints and such.

Sherlock took a look around, hands behind his back and his nose in the air. He maneuvered around the stage, slick as an otter in the water, stepping over logs to inspect a splatter of blood in the dirt. His coat swished with every turn he gave as he paced his magnifying glass up and down everything on and near the body.

To Eve, it seemed to be years until Sherlock got back to his feet and stood back from the body. Sherlock turned, widening his eyes subtly at John, keying John to look at the knife in the dead man's hand. The blade was identical to the one John swiped from Eve.

John stepped next to him and it was clear that they had the same question running through both of their heads as they stared at the body.

"Are those," John said, "wings?"

When at last Eve heard the question being spoken, all that occurred to in the past three minutes caught up with her and she felt the most afflictive pang in her chest. She was silent this whole time—the time Sherlock took to scrutinize and the time it took for John to take those two steps forward to be next to his friend. She was silent because everything around her slowed. Everything quieted as if her ears could not process sound. Everything around Eve was a blur—from hyperactive movement or barely any movement at all, she could not discriminate. Not that it mattered to her.

Eve had to keep it together. She could not break, no matter how badly she wanted to. If she did, she'd be hauled away from this place. That could not happen. Eve had to stay because the body lying spread-eagle was Nathaniel.

His fair face was inane. His eyes were shut and his mouth was closed. He could have been faking it. He could've if it wasn't for the deep channel gouged through him. Someone stabbed him in the midriff and sliced outward, crossing a few ribs in the process. The bones poked through the corporeal trench the missing murder weapon dug through his body. A broken piece of one of Nathaniel's ribs had somehow managed to land five feet away from the rest of him.

Nathaniel had fought to the death; Eve knew this much to be true. Nathaniel wasn't one to go down without throwing a few punches himself. Plus, he had his angel blade. The dagger was in his outstretched palm, but it was bloodless, suggesting he couldn't land a hit or he was tricked. Either way, he was still dead. His wings were burnt—the thing that happened to every angel's wings when they died—and the charred silhouette of his feathers upon the brown grass convinced Eve further that she could do nothing to help him. To bring him back. She knew, somehow, this was her fault. It was always her fault.

From where she stood a few feet behind Sherlock and John, she stared onto Nathaniel's lifeless body. Guilt rose like a helium balloon inside her. And a memory not too distant, actually a string of them surfaced, flashing like an old movie reel through her mind.

_Boom! Crash!_

_Eve turned a corner and charged forward, scared for her life. She was flanked by Sam and Dean who were equally about to piss their pants as she was._

"_Run! Run! Run!" Sam yelled._

"_Go! Go! Go!" Dean yelled at the same time._

_Something sped after them. Due to its monstrous size and acceleration, it crashed into the wall behind them. The tunnel trembled; the walls shook with a huge tremor._

"_God damnit Cas, where the hell are you when we need you?" Dean said._

_Eve clasped her hand tighter around the golden thread in her hand and cut around a corner, following the length of string._

"_How much farther?" Sam asked, his breath haggard._

"_I don't know! I was down here looking for you, I wasn't exactly keeping tabs on where I was going!" Eve replied._

"_Well, you should've!"_

"_Shut up and run!" Eve shot back._

_The monster behind them in the dark, erupted in a ferocious growl-like noise. Its bulky oversized body knocked into walls and cracked holes into them with scrapes of its horns. The thing was gaining on them._

_Eve's legs stung. They'd been running through this labyrinth for ages. Every dank pipe and rusty vent on the bolted metal walls was a repetition of the last. Eve felt as if she were going crazy. Being down here too long was starting to get to her head._

_Suddenly, behind them, a blast of light and wind broke clear through the darkness. Everything was still immediately after, save for the 'clank clank' the Winchesters' boots made on the metal grates beneath them. But even that soon stopped because they hadn't expected something like that to happen. Carefully, noiselessly, the trio tiptoed back to the beast._

_They were met with the figure of a man on top of the defeated horned creature. He stood and faced the three of them. His face was automatically intruded with the beam of Dean's flashlight. They all saw a tip of a third horn in the man's hand. It was coated in a thick black substance similar to molasses. This, he had used to kill the monster._

"_Who are you?" Dean demanded, not asked._

"_Nathaniel," the man said, his eyes planting on Eve, "Castiel sent me to assist you."_

"_You're an angel?" Dean interrogated, sounding as if he didn't believe his own question._

_As his answer, Nathaniel stiff-backed and a light came from nowhere, showing the ethereal glow in his eyes and the shadow of his wings on the walls behind him._

_Dean tilted his head, seeing he had his reply, and the light dimmed, the wings vanishing with it._

_Eve asked, "How'd you kill it?"_

"_With a horn of its own kind," Nathaniel said, "Did you not know that was how it was done?"_

"_Of course I did," Eve made a face. "I watched Percy Jackson once."_

_Sam gave her a look. So did Dean._

Eve blinked, wanting desperately to smile. Yet, she could not find a reason to.

"_Hey Nate, do me a favor?" Eve asked. She flipped her page in her leather bound book and set her feet up on the table in their small shared motel room._

_Nathaniel turned around, fixing the collar of his button up beneath his golden yellow long sleeved sweater. Like Cas, he always wore the same outfit (angels fail to grasp fashion, Eve guessed). It consisted of his favorite yellow sweater, whitewash blue jeans, and casual dress shoes. Add this to his thick, perfectly tousled haircut and his five o'clock shadow and you have a Polo poster boy._

_Nathaniel answered, "Of course. For you, I'd do anything. After you saved me—"_

_Eve smiled, "Relax, Nate. I'm not asking anything drastic. I just want some grub. Care to come with me to that Joe's Place down the road?"_

"_I'd be happy to," Nathaniel's eyes sparkled._

Nathaniel had fallen in love with Eve somewhere along the line. When Dean and Sam kicked her out of the bunker, Nathaniel became her Hunter initiate. He accompanied her everywhere. Before she knew the reason why he stayed, she assumed it was because she was alone and he felt pity for her. He was a true friend and someone she trusted with her life. Nate felt the same way about her.

And now, he was dead.

"What's on the radio?" Sherlock asked. His voice only floated across Eve. It didn't have meaning to her so it did not stick.

Lestrade brushed passed her. "Two hikers found our victim only because this track was playing. It's just this song playing over and over again."

Eve looked up, finally tearing her eyes from the ashen face of her dear best friend. She failed to notice the beat box earlier, but it was placed scrupulously at the base of a tree a few feet away from Nathaniel.

Lestrade pushed the button and everyone listened.

Eve heard the guitar and the beat of the drums and instantly identified the band as The Guess Who.

"_American woman, stay away from me! American woman, mama, stay away from me!"_

After the first minute of lyrics, Lestrade shut the music off. Sherlock and John turned to see the stricken face of Eve Winchester.

"What does this mean?" John asked, seeing the single tear fall from Eve's eye.

"The plot has thickened," Sherlock replied punctually.

Eve sucked in a breath and clenched her fists.

****Please review! Thank you!****


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight:

At a whisper, she said, "I'm sorry," and turned to walk away, the back of her hand to her nose. Fearing she might let everyone see her rend, Eve quickly deviated from the path back to the cottage and began climbing over logs and swatting away branches. She fled.

Back on base, Lestrade pointed after her, yelling at Sherlock, "Get after her. You wanted to be responsible for her, so she's your problem now."

_Problem? _John thought.

_Problem indeed, _Sherlock thought.

John and Sherlock ran into the woods after her.

Eve prayed. _Cas, please, get me out of here. Nate's dead. I need you._

Sherlock and John were near. The rustling of the leaves and the snap of dry twigs under their feet got louder in their chase after Eve.

Cas appeared suddenly, and then, so did John and Sherlock.

"Stop!" Sherlock shouted. His and John's breathing was irregular from their young spit of exertion.

Before their very eyes, Castiel and Eve Winchester vanished into thin air.

Sherlock sprinted forward, skidding in dirt and flashing around so quickly, it was frightening. "Where'd they go?" he kept barking as he ran frantically around the perimeter of where Eve was just seen with the man in the tan coat.

John watched Sherlock fuss and go insane. He himself was a human reproduction of a deer caught in the headlights; he was shocked into inactivity. Had Cas done the same thing to him and Eve earlier? Teleported them? John's mind whirled. He couldn't think.

"How did she do that? Where did he come from?" Sherlock spat, his head being victimized by spasmodically uncontrollable twitches. Sherlock had to freeze and smack his hands on either side of his head to calm himself. He shut his eyes tightly when he receded to his mind palace.

"Focus. _Focus!" _Sherlock cried out.

"Sherlock," John said and suddenly, he was standing next to him.

Sherlock turned to John. Eyes crazed and manner demented, he threw up a pointer finger at Eve Winchester. _"Who is she?" _he hissed each word one at a time.

"Why don't you figure it out, little brother?" Mycroft manifested on Sherlock's other side.

"I'm trying," Sherlock exclaimed, psychotically throwing his hands in every direction.

Mycroft stared, egging him on. "Try harder."

_"You_ try harder." Sherlock narrowed his eyes at his brother. Then, he swung his hand in the air in front of him, bidding Mycroft out of his mind palace.

Sherlock snapped his head at Eve. She stood there, still. The tips of her fingers were tucked into the pockets of her blue jeans and her white tank top still had unsettled, sleepless creases in it. Her leather jacket was worn and battered and her boots were just the same. This was how she looked the first time they spoke to one another, and this was how he encrypted her information.

He walked up to her, scarcely handling the lunatic disposition to hold a gun to her head to get her to speak. It wouldn't do much considering they were in his head.

He circled around her like a vulture does before it swept down on its prey. Sherlock stepped slowly, carefully, his shoes making echoing taps on the pristine linoleum flooring. His right hand was settled into the cup of his left hand behind his back and his fingers tapped together while he looped around her.

All sorts of words spelt out letter-by-letter around her body. In the curve under her eye. On her sleeve. On the aglets of her boots. Floating in the air above her head.

Fighter. Depressed. Stubborn. Unpredictable. Alcoholism. Soldier. Wounded. Savior. Liar. Broken. Leader. Strong. Hopeless. Self-hatred. Haunted.

Sherlock stopped short. He'd seen something there that wasn't there before. The infinitesimal smile on her lips and the tarnished shimmer in her eyes. Another final word smacked itself onto his conscious. _Mask._

Sherlock gasped, sucking a lungful of air inward.

"What is it?" John asked. He was back to standing several feet away from the detective. They were both mentally and physically standing in the forest once again.

"Mask," Sherlock said, eyes fixated ahead of him as he started forward.

John turned as Sherlock passed him. "What?"

"She's peeling away her mask!"

* * *

Cas let go of Eve when they were safely inside her flat. Eve could let her emotion loose here—Sherlock and John would not be here for at least two hours. She'd deal with them when they came.

Eve exhaled, her breath rattling her ribcage. She made fists with her hands, caging deep emotion. She opened her eyes and finally erupted. She stormed over to her bookshelf and yanked numerous volumes off the sorter, and threw them blindly over her shoulder. Eve grabbed the lamp on the end table and threw it against the wall. She slumped down into the chair after that, knowing she was just making a bigger mess for herself.

"Tell me what is going on. I want to help. I want to do _something._ Let me," Cas implored.

"No." Eve said, "You can't. I'm doing this on my own."

"You can't do this on your own, you're going to pieces! I'm going to Sam and Dean. You will listen to them."

"No." Eve was too close to yelling. "If you want to help me then you will keep them out of this. I didn't even want to drag you into this," Eve said, "Promise me."

Castiel pressed his lips together in a long thin line. He felt it to be a bad idea. Going against Dean and Sam never proved to be a good thing for him. For anyone, really.

"This is something I have to do on my own. I have to fix it by myself. Cas please."

It was a few moments before his sad blue eyes met hers again. "What do I tell them?"

"I unstuck the gum on my shoe. That I'm fine now and not to worry," Eve answered.

Castiel gave her a half-nod. His eyes darted away and he relaxed his hands. They had formed fists at sometime and he only just noticed it. "Don't die, Evangeline. Do not let them get to you," he said.

Eve tilted her chin up, "Bye Cas."

A whoosh of flapping wings and she was alone. Eve would sit there for hours upon hours. The clock ticked by the time. Night approached. Seven o'clock. Eight o'clock. Nine.

Eve sat with her elbow up on the armrest and her cheek resting on her knuckles. She didn't know when she fell asleep.

"_I can't begin to understand why you'd think yourself a monster. You are the beacon of hope this world needs. You can set things straight."_

"_I just don't think that's possible. I came so close to—" Eve exhaled, letting the break of her voice speak for itself. "Dean and Sam kicked me out. They made it crystal clear that I'm not welcome. It's because of what I've done. I have hurt so many people and Dean said so himself, I'm a monster."_

"_Dean and Sam only saw one side of the story," Nate said. "Your actions do not define who you are." _

"_Sure they don't, but they sure as hell don't make matters easier." Eve did not sound like she believed all he said, and Nathaniel knew this in his heart that she didn't._

"_I think…" Nathaniel trailed off, his eyes going down to her hand resting flat on the hood of the car as they sat together late at night with the star spangled night sky forever above them. "I think," he said again, sounding very human, "what you did was the most selfless thing I could ever fathom. You willingly sacrificed yourself to God's wrath in going against Him and sewing the world back together. You did it carefully, stitch by stitch, never stopping to see your blood on your hands or how close to death you were. You never thought of yourself. Not once." _

"_Anyone would do it." Eve picked up her feet to set them on the bumper of the car and leaned closer to Nate. _

"_Not many would have the strength to pull through with such a task, Eve. In all my millennia I have seen people born into this world, grown until they are gray, and pass on into heaven, all having loved so many and much in their lifetime. Unabashedly, without hesitation or remorse, and with open arms. Though some of this love was lost, in all of my time watching humans grow as a single soul, I have never seen the same love twice. Your love cannot parallel anyone else's because it is rooted into the very ground you walk upon. It's in the petals of the flowers. It's in a child's smile and in lovers' hearts. It's with every raindrop that falls and the bark of every stray in the streets. Your love for the world, for life, is what made all this love, today, possible."_

_With these words said, Nathaniel gently set his hand on hers. _

_Eve laughed. "How can an angel know so little about humans but then know so much? You can barely operate a toaster, yet we're having the discussion of life here."_

"_If it makes you feel better, I didn't burn the toast this morning."_

Eve's eyes opened wearily, threatening to droop closed again with weighty eyelids. She twisted her body in the chair, situating herself to get comfortable. Then, Eve froze.

Sherlock smiled at her. Not because he was feeling positive emotion toward her, but because she'd finally awoken. It was more of a 'Hi, yes it's me. Surprise' smile. He sat across from her in the same spot he chose the night he and John broke in together.

"Again with this? Really?" Eve groaned. She sat up and fixed her jacket and tucked some of her hair behind her ears.

"You didn't exactly make it difficult."

"Just knock, man. Social conventions is called social conventions for a reason." Eve paused a moment, almost falling asleep again (oh god, how her body yearned for rest) and then she habitually jerked awake again, "Hang on. Were you watching me sleep?"

"No actually. I was in my mind palace the entire thirty-something minutes I've been sitting here." He said it with a flat tone.

"_Mind palace?_"

"Yes," he rolled his eyes to the side, "My head is a computer. I store all my information, all important facts, data, dates onto my hard drive so I can access it later and I call it my mind palace."

"You realize that's an inaccurate analogy, right? Brains have parallel processing and computers have sequential processing, so for your brain to be compared to a computer—it's not exactly ideal," Eve explained. "Hey, I'm not as stupid as I look," she added shortly after.

"And yet you think I will let you slide without explaining yourself."

"No I don't."

"Hm. Today's been quite a turnout."

"Scare you, did I?"

"I don't scare—"

"Not easy, you don't. But I scared you." The humor disappeared from her voice when she said, "I'm sorry, but I needed some time for myself."

"And here I thought you were just redecorating," Sherlock commented, eyes flicking to the books strewn about the floor and the shattered light fixture at the foot of the wall closest to them.

"He was a friend of mine."

"I know." There was more to those two words than how they were spoken, but Sherlock failed to elaborate and Eve did not pressure him to.

After a brief pause Sherlock said, "The dagger beside the body—"

"Nathaniel," Eve asserted in a hushed voice, "His name, is Nathaniel."

"—I found to be interesting most especially, if not the scorched earth or your inexplicable departure, because I have seen one of them before."

This particular statement roused Eve's attention.

"John gave me one, saying you saved him with a double," Sherlock removed the slender weapon from the inside of his coat. He held it aloft as he let his gaze glide over the keen instrument, while also ensuring Eve saw it in his hand. "And that they both belong to you. It this true?"

"If I knew this was going to be show-and-tell, I would've brought something cooler. Like a snow cone machine." Eve also removed an angel blade from the inside of her jacket.

Upon seeing the other blade, Sherlock sat forward, arm outstretched to offer Eve her second weapon. He pursed his lips together, conscientiously acquainted with this uneasy feeling in his stomach. His eyes were warily attached to the blade and after a moment, they swept over Eve.

Eve was right to say Sherlock did not scare easy because it was fact. He didn't. Because he saw the solution and the explanation for everything. He had a logical breakdown as to how he came to each and every resolution, and he knew fear as a chemical imbalance—nothing but stimulation for the body to act. But Eve, Eve did not come with a simple answer—frankly, Sherlock didn't find one. It was because he couldn't. His superhuman, super-advanced abilities did not reach as far. Eve was far more involved, far more complicated than he ever estimated. He feared this. He feared her because of this. The last time he felt even remotely close to this, he and John were solving a case John dubbed The Hounds of Baskerville. Everything he knew and believed was tested and now they were in the same position again. Only this time, he wasn't sure he would be content with, or even get, an answer. He had to be wary and cautious. He could no longer force her into revealing herself. He had to be something that wasn't…Sherlock. He had to be gentle and patient. Only time would tell if she would trust him enough so he could put to rest this wicked, troublesome nightmare. Also, John might have used some…gentle persuasion in Eve's favor to get him to 'behave'.

Eve looked at Sherlock and then gently took back her possession. "I suppose you're aiming to glean something from me."

Sherlock was silent.

Eve sat back when Sherlock did and set an angel blade on the table next to her. Eve said, "Well, as long as we're being honest with each other…" Eve gave the last angel blade a twirl in her fingers. "I sure hope you can keep a secret," she said to herself, "If not then I figure what the hell. Friends tell secrets." Eve grinned at him.

Sherlock didn't know where she was going with this. He experienced irksome resolve when she slipped out of her jacket and took the blade across the soft skin of her forearm. The woman didn't flinch when the dagger broke the skin and crimson blood gushed from the slice in her arm.

Sherlock glanced up at her, new questions surfacing.

"Wait," she promised. Eve watched her arm as if she expected something marvelous to happen…or perhaps, it wasn't so marvelous?

Then, ever so gradually, an inkling of something else shone in the wound in her arm. It was fluid and eerily beautiful—the sliver of white wispy light that emanated in her leaking blood. It illuminated the red, swirling in on itself like a coiling snake, but never mixing with the blood, as if it was its own separate being incapable of cohesion. But somehow this 'snake' was not repulsive. Sherlock was filled with the sense that this bewitching light was something pure and good. His eyes pulled themselves up to Eve.

Eve said, "When Nate—Nathaniel's in the morgue, with your permission, I can show you he has the same thing I do."

"The…light…in your arm?" Sherlock was frighteningly at ease. Perfectly pacific. Nothing in him ran the red alert. His mind was mellow—something it never was supposed to be. The numerous quantity of trains rumbling down their tracks at unbreachable speeds were silent and stationary mid-route. Sherlock should have been alarmed and critical—a deducing and debunking machine whose wit was unfettered. But he simply could not snap out of it.

Eve nodded slowly, as if she did it too hastily, she'd knock Sherlock back a few feet. She saw him differently in this moment.

"What of the scorch marks?" He asked.

"They are what you saw them as," Eve replied.

"Do you have—"

"Wings? Sorry sport, only one secret per visit." Eve stood and walked to the kitchen. The running tap hit the bottom of the metal sink and the sound of it bounced back into the silence.

"You're taking this a lot better than I expected. Honestly, I thought you were going to go ballistic. So, uh, " Eve came back into the living room, wrapping a towel around the gash in her arm, "gold star for you."

"How is this—how are you—possible?"

"You know, sometimes I think the same thing."

There was a moment following the end of her sentence that was completely their own. Before now, their eyes just observed. Presently, they _saw._

Eve looked away, sticking a hand in the back pocket of her pants. "Where's John?"

"At the flat. He's—" he blinked, "waiting for us to return."

Eve nodded. "Oh yeah, I'm still 'under protection'."

"Something tells me," Sherlock paused and his mind stalled. He had to wait until his brain caught up with his mouth, and even then, he furrowed his brow. "that you don't need protection."

She picked her head up and smiled. "Look who's catching up."

* * *

The next day was a day comfortably spent in 221B. It started with a tray of freshly brewed tea and a delicate violin melody. Sherlock played close to the window in his red tartan dressing gown and gazed out to the street below. The musical notes flittered and floated through the flat, the steady concordant strides of the bow made the room fill with a low whispering like the wind. Then the bow swept the strings again and suddenly the sounds were swept away only to be plucked from the air by Eve's entranced ears. She watched him as he got lost in his music, ambient as it was. He seemed to forget she was there; camped out on the sofa with two sheets and a spare pillow.

When John awoke, he and Eve sat down for breakfast while Sherlock gallivanted around the flat in his nightwear. Sherlock wore chemistry goggles and gloves that went just past his wrists while he played with some chemicals in the kitchen for a few hours. John and Eve conversed together in the living room afterwards, letting Sherlock to his personal pastime (one of them anyway). Glass clinked together, a Bunsen burner was lit, and liquids were mixed into solutions. Sherlock worked ardently.

"I have a feeling I should apologize," John said, taking a sip from his teacup before putting it back on its saucer.

"Yeah?" Eve questioned. She casually flipped through a thick anatomy book she selected from the shelf in the wall. She sat in Sherlock's chair while John sat in his.

"For whatever he did." John needn't motion to his friend in the kitchen.

"He didn't do anything. We just talked like two civilized human beings."

"Him?" John pointed over his shoulder, "He has a gift for upsetting people."

"Yeah, no. He was fine."

"Hmph," he rocked back his head. John's eyes darted back to hers. "Are you?" he asked, "Are you okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"Yesterday. That man. He was your friend."

"How do you figure?" Eve asked lightheartedly, hiding the tight lump in her throat and the ache in her chest.

"Because the look on your face. It was the face of someone trying to put things together, while at the same time, they fell apart."

"Well," she said after John took another sip of his tea, "I'm sorry you know what that face means."

"_Ah," _John shook his head. "I invented that face." _War. It does things to you._

Eve smiled, now feeling heartstrings snapping. She knew he was trying to help her feel better, but it was an odd method. Maybe he just didn't know how.

To keep her mind off of Nathaniel, she absentmindedly scratched at the strip of cloth wrapping her arm.

"Did you do that?"

Eve glanced down at her bandaged self-inflicted wound. "Yep."

"You need a proper bandage." He set his cup on the table beside him and got out of his chair. John went into the kitchen, stepped around Sherlock, and dipped a hand in one of the drawers. He came back toting a first aid kit.

"That dishrag," he said, sitting across from her, "isn't really going to cut it."

Stuff like this dishrag worked plenty of times well on their own in the past. Nonetheless, Eve let the seasoned doctor doctor away. Maybe it made him feel batter, she thought, as he disinfected and trussed her arm in a strip of gauze and tape.

"It's the least I can do," _since you jumped through a skylight for me. _

Eve pressed her lips together, a smile forming in the movement's aftermath.

"How'd this happen anyway? It had to be deliberate," John motioned to the finished work with a dip of his head.

She sat back in her chair. As if pulled by strings, her eyes snapped up to Sherlock. His back was to the both of them, but Eve had no doubts that he'd been listening in on their conversations here and there or whenever he fancied.

Eve asked him, "Should I show him, Sherlock?" Eve asked. "It's up to you. I could just wait." She was bluffing. Eve couldn't exsect any more of her grace. Not without a severe amount of pain and a large (very large) syringe. And of course, the risk of death was a factor. It didn't matter however, because the Winchester knew Sherlock would not pour more of himself into it.

As predicted, the detective did not respond. He was silent all day—hadn't acknowledged either of Eve or John's presence in all this time. He kept to himself and his chemistry set in his makeshift lab.

"Show me what? Sherlock?" John pestered.

Sherlock measured a clear liquid into a beaker and then added a drop of a second liquid from an eyedropper into it. He watched it closely, his whole body bent over so that his face came within a foot of distance from the glass. Not a blink after he had done this, Sherlock shot up, silently cursing the brew. Then, he took the beaker in his hand and dumped its contents into a rubbish bin, which he then kicked under the corner of the table. He carried on his experimentations, having still not answered John or Eve in the few seconds that ticked between them.

John tilted his chin down, his person immediately snatched by the sight Sherlock abandoned in the trashcan. Tendrils of steam puffed up into the air above the trash bin. John frowned as he watched the steam evaporate into the air.

"Great," he emphasized, "We're all keeping secrets. I like this—keeping John out of the loop. 'Tis a great idea." By his tone, John was getting heated. He clenched his jaw repeatedly.

Sherlock heard the shift in John's voice, and knew his temper to begin to bubble. It did not faze him; he continued by himself, among his test tubes and concoctions.

To say Sherlock was bothered was a distortion and a superlative underestimation of this maddening perturbation that molested every neuron in his brain. That moment he shared with Eve, when she let him marvel at the unnamed glowing entity protruding from her arm, he'd completely lost himself, his judgment, and that was something he could not afford to do. A chance he could not take. The reason he was diligent in the kitchen and detached from anything outside said kitchen was because he was endeavoring to find out what _exactly _Eve did to have some lurid alien body slide from her cut. Or rather, what she _used._

Sherlock was convinced she used some sort of chemical or chemical compound, which is why he was presently messing with a multitude of semi-dangerous—really dangerous—chemicals. He contemplated the idea that she used TCPO—the substance used in some glow stick varieties. Then he weighed the Actinium, Radium, Radon, and several other options. Of course, none of these had the right pigmentation, were only visible in the dark, and all are extremely harmful to the human body when injected (as this was the only way the 'light' could have entered her bloodstream). Even such a small amount like the amount he witnessed slip from her fissured vein could shut down several internal organs, and with extended exposure, it would surely kill. Maybe she took a drug to numb the pain, Sherlock concluded. Cocaine? Meth? No. Any combination or any chemical and drug, whether the drug is a narcotic, depressant, stimulant, or a hallucinogen, would be fatal. Then, he considered her drinking habits. With her increased intake, it is labeled a depressant. It inhibits nerve function. First, you lose sensitivity to heat or cold. Then you lose sense of touch. Further down the ladder, you lose coordination and muscle control…but Eve inured herself to the intoxicating effects of alcohol. So then, possibly, it did not play as prominent a role in this dilemma as he thought.

Maybe it was intrinsic. She injected a bit of the chemical into her body and let act as a poison for so long. After repetition of this act, her body became immune. But then, the physical signs would be noticeable. Chemicals like the ones she was likely to use would have eaten at muscle and destroyed blood cells, making her more susceptible to illness and infection. It would have made her tender to violence. And although Eve did appear atrophied a priori, John did _say _she walked away from a six-story drop. Could he trust John's eye? It was also possible that Evangeline could have pulled the wool over John's eyes as well. Maybe Eve fooled him into thinking he saw one thing, when in reality, it was quite different. From that outlook, she was using John to get to Sherlock to get the both of them on her side. For what? There was more to this story. Cyrus Sloan and Eve Winchester had a history. What happened? Why is he back for her now? Is she truly a victim or is she a consonant in collusion unbeknownst to him?

If that was the case, she was an excellent actor. Her self-hatred, guilt, and depression all seemed part of her mask now. Beneath her faux gloom was someone much more resourceful and adroit than he predicted. More and more, Eve Winchester, if that was even her real name, was especially Gordian.

Sherlock had to cut this knot. But did he have enough fact to do so? The more he thought he knew about her, the more everything around him screamed 'Wrong!'

"Are you going to say anything or are you going to continue pouring that on yourself?" John brusquely asked.

Sherlock dropped out of his psyche and blinked down at the beaker and the test tube he held in his hands. The test tube overflowed with liquid, and continued to run over his glove. It ran down his unprotected arm and soaked through his sleeve and gathered in a pool on the tabletop.

Sparked by concern, John leapt to his feet and hurried to aid his friend. Eve went into the kitchen, too.

Realizing what was happening, Sherlock slammed the two bottles on the table and ran to the sink. He ripped off his protective gloves.

John took a dishtowel to the table, cleaning Sherlock's blunder.

At the same time, Eve saw the burns start to surface on Sherlock's sinewy forearm as she ran to his side. She only had a moment to decide whether or not her help was needed, or welcome. Regardless: Eve saw Sherlock hesitate and watch curiously as the wound spread.

"Oh come on," Eve ejaculated, yanking on his bony wrist. She brought it under the water faucet and turned it on.

Sherlock let loose a noise of pain and tried to pull his arm out from under the water. Eve's grip had him planted where he was.

"John, the gauze please," Eve said.

Not knowing what to do with the hand towel, John disposed of it in the garbage can and went for the first aid kit. He gave it to Eve.

"That hurt," Sherlock complained.

"Not as much as it would have if you kept standing there like a moron." She took his forearm out from under the water and gingerly dried it in a second hand towel. Eve applied burn ointment and wrapped his arm up to the crook of his elbow in gauze.

When she was finished, Sherlock flipped his bound arm around, giving it a quick inspection. The burn was virtually painless. He said, "Don't think this changes anything."

Eve turned around, walking back to sit in his chair. "I won't."

"I could've handled it well on my own."

"Of course you could have."

John looked at Eve, and then Sherlock. "Could you two please stop acting like a couple of thirteen-year-olds and put this childish rivalry behind you? Really, am I the only adult in the room?"

"Yes," Eve said, "You are. However, you're also in the kitchen and I am—"

Shaking his head, John interrupted her. "Don't."

Eve shut her mouth, her brow showcasing her surprise.

Sherlock smirked.

John turned to him, "Go sit in that room until you two can get along like mature adults." He pointed to where Eve sat.

"She's the one who's pointed a gun at me and nearly severed my head from my shoulders and you want me to get along with her?"

"Go. Don't get up, either of you, until you've resolved this. We're all living under the same roof for a while so you might as well start now." John felt like a scolding father.

Sherlock and John stared at each other intensely. A minute later, greatly piqued, Sherlock walking into the living room and sat across from Evangeline.

"Not going to complain that I'm in your chair?" Eve asked.

Barely moving anything besides his jaw to speak, he replied, "We're suppose to act mature."

Eve nodded her head once, widening her eyes. She seemed to silently comment 'Good luck with that.'

John came into the room with the daily newspaper in hand. Supplying Sherlock with a glance as he walked by, he went on regularly as if it wasn't like a scrimmage between fire and ice in the very room in which they all sat. John situated himself comfortable on the sofa and leafed through the pages of the paper. He had a hunch they'd be here like this for some time.

Hunter, Detective, and Doctor all engaged in a lasting sedentary occupation in place of a colloquy. Nothing was exchanged, save a few brief glances. John turned a page. Eve picked the anatomy book up again and perused its material. Sherlock stared on.

After a while, Sherlock ceded the silence. "John, tell me everything that transpired, yesterday, between the time you left the crime scene and the time you arrived here."

John looked over his paper. "I said for you two to work it out, not to drag me into it."

"In order for us to 'work it out' I need to drag you into it. Yesterday. Give me an account of all that happened. And please, don't spare me the details."

John sat forward and placed the paper on the table. After a moment, he gave the full account of all that happened. Here and there, Sherlock would interrupt him to ask a few questions, or tell him to describe a particular scene, the hooded pursuer, or an object. Other than that, Sherlock was quiet and let John recollect and recount. After John was finished telling the story, he looked to Sherlock expectantly, and seemed relieved as if he was released from an onerous weight on his chest.

"What say you?" Eve finally spoke. Her striking hazel gaze flicked up to the man opposite her a split second before she closed the book and left it to rest on her lap.

Sherlock was looking at the ground now, but tilted his head toward her and his brow lifted. He stroked his bottom lip with his pointer finger, somewhat withdrawn from John and Eve.

"You're not saying anything. Normally you would have by now," Eve said. She refrained from any sarcasm or anything…Winchester. Now, as she sat seemingly safe in the company of two gentlemen in the interior of the famous 221B of Baker Street, Eve felt more vulnerable than ever. She knew this moment determined if she could effectively keep John and Sherlock away from harm. Sherlock's trust was the last decisive component if they were ever to reach the end of this nightmare.

"I mean," Eve continued, "People are dropping like flies and all you're concerned about it me."

"Take a good look around and then ask me why," Sherlock responded.

She went silent, not needing to look. Salt was still in all the windows and at the foot of doors and in a large circle in the center of the room.

"You claim to have no ill intentions against John and myself but you come to us, throwing salt on throw rugs and door mats and in my face, and blessing water telling us it'll keep certain people away. By John's account, this man in a blue hood is one of these people, and without any known outside aid or contact, he supposedly suspended John in the air. I considered various possibilities for how he managed this, but given the fact that you were on a roof with a substantial amount of other complications, I negated every last one of them."

Sherlock went on, "Then, at the previous crime scene, there was a weapon identical to the one in your possession in the victim's hand. Much to everyone's—especially my—repudiation, there was also what appeared to be the charred image of wings—expertly placed, by the way. It seems almost as if they belong to him. Ridiculous idea, I know, but then again, so are angels…"

Sherlock watched as Evangeline flushed up at the mention of angels (and he did only mention angels because Lestrade relayed the farcicality to him, completely blinded by his beliefs).

"And then again, my reasons to be dubious are reinforced by your little display last night."

At this point, John was transfixed.

"What did you use?"

"You mean you couldn't find the answer?" Eve asked. She knew where she wanted to go with that question. "Of course you couldn't. You are a man of reason and fact, Sherlock. You are so scientifically inclined and you have _so many _ideas that when it boils down to it, you really have no idea at all."

"It is true," Sherlock replied, "I am wedded to reason, but one's ideas must be as broad as nature in order to interpret nature."

"Broad," Eve reiterated. "That's what you call it. Can't you see what's happening around us is a lot bigger than you and me? People are _dying_—no prints, no weapons, no _clues—_and I'm here saying I can help you and you can't just accept it?" Eve's voice was dipping into emotion.

"You haven't had much experience with people like Sherlock, have you?" John quietly intervened. A twitch of a smile swept his face and was gone again.

Eve realized then she was standing and her hands had formed fists. "No. I just deal with a lot of normal people, not exceptionally stubborn, exceptionally brilliant people." She relapsed into the chair once again, forcefully calming herself.

"So then, give me an answer and we can continue to work together on this case," Sherlock said a moment later.

Eve exhaled, rubbing her eyes. She shoved all of her brown hair over to one shoulder and sat back in Sherlock's chair. "I'm a Hunter."

A victorious grin smacked itself on his face in that instant. "Good, now that we have all that sorted out—" Sherlock sprang to his feet and went for the door. All Sherlock wanted was the satisfaction that came with her long-awaited confession, and now it came.

"Wait, y'mean like a bounty hunter or a hunter hunter?" John asked.

"Oh of course not a hunter hunter, John," Sherlock stressed 'hunter hunter'.

"With her plenitude of weaponry, she is most definitely a bounty hunter—and a twisted one, at that. As I suspected." Sherlock proudly announced. Oh clever Sherlock. He did it again. Beat the system.

Eve shook her head. "No, I am neither of those things. Good guess though."

Sherlock stopped walking so suddenly it was almost comical. He was a statue, molded and standing a foot from the doorway. _Guess?_

"You're forgetting the light, the wings, the salt, and the holy water," Eve reminded.

He seemed catatonic. You could gently push him with your finger and he would fall over. Sherlock wasn't facing Eve, but it was clear how he struggled to egress his stupification.

"No, I do not have a mental disorder and yes, the light and wings are both real. The holy water and salt is too, but you actually have solid proof so…I suppose you'll need one last piece to complete the wacko triangle. Get ready for it because here he comes." While she spoke, she silently prayed.

When she ended her final sentence, Castiel manifested directly in front of Sherlock, staring him straight in the eye as Sherlock leapt back, arms slung out in front of him, and tripped back over the corner of the red area rug. He hit hard on his bony rear and looked up at Cas with the most raw form of fear in his eyes.

"Sherlock, this is Castiel. He's my brother," Eve smiled softly, knowing she had Sherlock pinned now, even though she was regretful it had to come to this. "Cas, this is Sherlock. And you have already met John."

Sherlock's lungs could not possibly contain as much air as if needed, causing his chest to move accordingly with his rapid breathing. He truly looked a child, there, splayed out on the floor and utterly without voice.

"You might want to shield your eyes a bit, but either way, it'll get my message across," Eve declared, "Cas, go ahead."

Still looming over Sherlock, Cas let his inner light set the room ablaze. He peacocked, puffing up his chest and squaring his shoulders. His feathers unfurled and his wings expanded to their full length, and each of his feathers shone black as ink—to Eve anyway. Sherlock perceived them as nothing more than an elaborate silhouette upon the walls. He stared and covered a meager portion of is face in front of him with his arm. His heart was pounding so loud he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. His eyes were projections of his horror and his mouth was hanging open.

The light dimmed and Cas folded his wings, but Sherlock postponed lowering his arm. He'd seen the wings. He knew they…they were real. In no way, shape, or form, could that have been pulled off within his own home without his knowledge.

"I'm going to say this," Eve halted, taking a breath and a step forward, "one more time…I am Evangeline Winchester, and I am a Hunter."


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine:

Sherlock falteringly removed his eyes from Castiel, and like a child searches for comfort in a distressing time, he looked to John. John was at the end of the couch, his back against the arm of it and his legs and arms up on the cushions as if he'd tried to crabwalk or scoot away from him. John was just as alarmed and frightened as Sherlock was—he was in a sweat and his breaths were heavy and a strain on his ribcage. John looked to Sherlock and searched his face. They both turned to Eve. Extreme trepidation is all either of them could fathom.

Eve held up both of her hands as if surrendering, turned her back, and took the chair from the table where John usually typed on his computer. She set it between Sherlock and John's chair and sat facing the fireplace. She waited.

John's gaze was glued to the back of her head. Sherlock looked up to Castiel and sucked in a small breath as he closed his mouth. Cas remained where he was.

Sherlock turned himself over onto his elbow and shakily, slowly, got to his feet. To delude his own conscious into believing everything down to his core was not petrified and unbalanced, he folded his dressing gown over himself and limply tied it together. He took a few steps and sat in his black chair. John followed shortly after.

After they parked into a near stupor, timidly glancing all around, Sherlock clasped his hands together and rubbed his fingers. John appeared to be holding his breath. Castiel stepped behind Eve and set his hand on her shoulder. At his touch, she crossed an arm over her chest to lay her hand on his. Eve bent her head.

"I understand if you're freaked beyond belief right now and I understand it if you never want to have contact with me again, but you had to know what kind of mess you were getting into," Eve delivered her words with gravitated earnestness. Hearing herself say those words made her stop to give a shuddering laugh. Never before had she felt more at risk for wearing her heart on her sleeve.

She folded her hands together and said, "As for me, I guess you could label me as a professional murderer, mayhem, and resurrectionist. I desecrate graves, dismember and kill things that normal people would never believe. Hunters hunt down and kill everything supernatural. Doppelgangers, ghosts, vampires, demons, you name it. All things kids are told are only stories and aren't real are as real as you and me. And my brothers and I and many others out there track these things down and gank 'em before they can hurt any more people."

"There's no such thing as monsters," Sherlock spurred the axiom swiftly—a common reflex from nonbelievers despite reoccurring proof. He couldn't understand. He never believed any of this—never could, because everything the world had to offer could be analyzed and interpreted. To the rational mind, nothing is inexplicable, only unexplained, and that was his job. He made the complicated world seem simple.

"And they used to say the world was flat." Eve looked up to Cas, and then back to John and Sherlock, "Salt and holy water keep a good deal of the paranormal away. When you lay salt down, it serves as a barrier. Things inhuman can't get into anything if it's lined with salt. Holy water burns anything unholy. Salt and holy water have the same effect on demons. Sloan is a demon. I'm here to hunt him down and kill him."

Eve left a moment for them to process her words. "When I came here, I was on vacation. What I do does a hell of a number on you so I came here. When I realized this could be a job, I knew I had to stay. So that's why I had you put down salt lines and why I gave you bottles of holy water. I am trying to protect you."

"There were finger prints. There was evidence. Therefore, there is a logical explanation and a human criminal on the loose," Sherlock said. It surprised him that he could still string words together in their correct order.

"You're still thinking along literal, reasonable, and scientific lines, Sherlock," Eve commented. "Demons are human souls that have been corrupted from extensive torture in hell. When they come to the Earth plane, they have to use humans as vessels in order to get around. So yes, you did find prints, but whoever they belonged to were possessed by a demon and are most likely dead by now."

"I don't understand," John finally spoke. "Hell, demons, ghosts…How?"

"That, is a very complicated letter for another day," Eve answered, "But I'll summarize it for you. Reality is a lot more complicated that you think, but it is, still, reality." She looked to Sherlock, "It's two sides of the same coin. You work on one side. I work on the other."

"Can I ask—" John looked terribly nauseated. He felt lightheaded. He had to put back his head and widen and blink his eyes a few times to keep himself from blowing chunks. "What else have you done? Where does," John burped a little and choked down his lunch. He threw a hasty finger at Castiel, "come in?"

"Well," Eve considered, sitting back and allowing her wings to flop over the back of her chair.

Cas unfolded his wing and wrapped it lovingly around her. He was there for structural support, for assurance.

"I have killed someone using a lug wrench and I've stolen an armored vehicle."

John made a face, his stomach churning.

"Welcome to Vaudeville, I guess," Eve said, "And Cas here, is an angel."

"Angel," John echoed, tipping his head forward. His voice was in an even deeper state of disbelief than it was previously.

"Shall I demonstrate again?" Cas asked politely.

"No, no," Sherlock jumped in, "No need. It's only natural to assume the holy oppose the damned. I just—" Sherlock propped an elbow up on his armrest and dug his fingers into his eyes, shutting them tightly. "This is—" He bent over his knees, and put his eyes in his palms. He let out a long grunt as if he was punched there, and then sat back up again. Sherlock hopped to his feet, assuming his knees would commit, but then he fell back to his chair almost automatically. He lifted his hands to his temples and pressed hard.

Eve gnawed the inside of her cheek until she tasted the tang of blood.

Castiel nudged her with the bone of his wing. "I think we should give them time."

John darted out of his chair and ran to the bathroom beyond the kitchen. The door was open just so, and the sound of John retching into the toilet came through the crack.

Eve got up and returned her chair to the table. She went for her bags and was out the door. Cas walked out behind her.

* * *

On a long road in the Wyoming countryside, the '67 Chevy Impala thundered over the rustling of the windblown grass. Inside, Dean had the radio cranked up and was beating his hands on the steering wheel to the music. Sam was rereading a newspaper article. The headline was '_Girl Goes Crazy And Explodes in Park' _so obviously there was something going on in Sweetwater, Wyoming. Sam and Dean were on their way there now. They'd be there in about ten minutes.

Dean's soulful lip-synching and steering-wheel-guitaring faltered and he took in the empty back seat through the rearview mirror. He relinquished his enthusiasm to the song and immersed himself in guilt-ridden loneliness. He felt so far from Sam, even from so close. Dean wanted to confide in his baby brother, because of Eve, because of how he felt about her, how he treated her in the past; how he pushed her away, and said so many things he shouldn't have. Dean felt it was his fault. He pushed her to do this—to leave. He drove her out. Dean had so many things on his mind. He had so much he wished he could say—so many things he would take back, rewrite, make better—but he could scour to the ends of the earth and still never find the words to explain how sorry he was.

"You too, huh?" Sam muttered. He flung the piece of paper to the side, too bushed to pick it apart any longer.

Dean's eyes flicked to Sam and he gripped the steering wheel tighter with his hand. He pulled himself to sit up correctly. "Yeah," Dean said in a low voice.

Sam shut the music off. "She's forgiven us—so many times," Sam winced, feeling unworthy of Eve's forgiveness.

"I know she has, man," Dean said, "I just, I don't know what I should do anymore. I keep messin' up."

Sam looked down to his lap, exhaling through his nose. The gloss in his eyes was somber. Sam said, "I know the feeling."

"She should be here with us and we should be hunting together. Like a family. It's what we do. I dunno Sam, I wish I could just add some duct tape and Gorilla Glue and we're good." Dean stopped here, his mouth left open. He wanted to say more, desperately, but all he could think about was how dry his mouth was and how empty he felt.

Sam was quiet. Before long, he spoke, "I wish I knew where to go from here."

When Sammy spoke, it made a fracture in Dean's chest. "I wish we both knew."

* * *

A week later, after much thought and no sight of Evangeline, Sherlock had reached his verdict. On a bright Thursday morning precisely at 8:03 a.m. Sherlock snapped like a rubber band, and driven by an unknown force, rushed across London.

On the other side of the city, Eve was walking to her apartment with two white plastic bags in her hands. She got to the front door, inserted her key, and entered. Upon closing her door, she went into the kitchen and pressed a button on the radio by some sugar and flour holders. Eve set the bags on the counter. She took off her jacket and threw it on a bar stool and then returned to the plastic bags. She withdrew a clear bag with three fist-sized apples in it, a group of celery stalks, and a jar of peanut butter. In the other bag, she left a pack of Budweiser.

Eve washed the celery and apples and began cutting the ends off the celery when there was a knock on the door. She paused—the tip of her knife in the middle of a celery stick—and looked up to the wooden cabinets. Quickly, her solitude faded and her vigilance came in full force. Her pointer finger found the trigger of her semiautomatic and she made her way to the door. No need to be quiet, because the radio station playing "Hold on Loosely" was quite loud.

Eve opened the door. Sherlock was there, standing at parade rest and had a miniscule grin that upturned the left side of his mouth. It modified into a tight lip pursing upon seeing her, however.

"Christo." Eve put her gun in her belt and undid the chain. "If you were a demon, you would've flinched and I would have had to exorcise you." She said it calmly and without verve, despite wondering why Sherlock chose to come to her now. And why he did so without John.

"Um, come in. Come in," Eve's voice was apologetic and she held the door for him. "I'm surprised you didn't lock pick your way in here after you must've downstairs."

Sherlock entered through the doorway, taking careful, precise steps, and never removing his hands from his lower back. His lips did odd movements as if he couldn't quite decide what to do with them. With a repressed voice, he said, "Er, I didn't…break in. Your landlord let me up."

"I paid him to say I was never here," she said it as if notifying herself.

Sherlock turned to face her. He seemed exceptionally tall to Eve today, but not as proud. In fact, a lot seemed off about him. The corner of his mouth twitched and his eyes were considerably softer. He told her, "Unfortunately for you, I paid more."

Eve crossed her arms. "Is John not with you?"

"He's at the flat," Sherlock replied, "trying to learn more about the paranormal."

"Oh. And what about you?"

"I came directly to the source." He kept his distance a few feet from Eve, undecided if he should move closer. "Pretty sure he doesn't even know I'm out."

Eve nodded slowly. "And by 'source', you mean?"

Four days prior, Molly walked into the lab with her arms overflowing with files. "Oh, hello Sherlock. I hadn't heard you come in," she said sweetly, halting only a moment before maintaining her workload.

"Molly, yes, I slipped in through the back while you were upstairs." Sherlock was sitting on a stool (with his feet set up on the rungs) near the counter. He was peering down a microscope. The light from the instrument reflected back, stabbing him in the eyes and illuminating his irises to where they appeared silver.

"What're you studying?" Molly slammed the pile on the table and walked over to Sherlock so she could look over his shoulder.

His eyes slid from the microscope specimen to Molly and back again. "Blood."

"Whose blood?" Molly inched back away from Sherlock ever so slightly. Her voice and expression were surprised with intermixing worriment.

"Kate's."

"Oh," Molly looked to the specimen plate beneath the lens. "Is it…on a piece of cloth?" Molly looked uncomfortably around the room. "Where is Kate? And John?"

Sherlock's phone chimed in his pants pocket. "John is on his way here."

Molly smiled, expecting him to go on. She realized Sherlock's avoidance of the 'Kate' subject and suddenly she knew. "Oh, well, she is okay? Nothing's wrong? I enjoyed meeting her and you two seem well together, so I hope—"

Sherlock froze and lifted himself from his work. "We're not—"

Molly swiveled around so fast, her hair whipped around with her. "Of course you're not." She walked out of the room.

Sherlock watched her as she went, his hand on the microscope knob. She left him confused and in thought—it was all painted like a picture on his face.

Three days prior, Sherlock was thinking deeply in his chair in the comfort of 221B. His right leg was crossed over his left casually. He had his violin in one hand and his bow slack in the other. Sherlock twiddled with the bow in his acute boredom spawned by his brother's visit.

"No solved cases in the papers these past few days," Mycroft commented, "I just wanted to see if you were still breathing."

"As you've observed, I am. Now go away, I'm busy," Sherlock shot back.

"I heard you were taking part in the Scotland Yard Witness Protection Program, but I fail to see a witness."

At this time, Mrs. Hudson came up the stairs humming a jolly little tune. She came through the door dressed in green and carrying a tray of tea in her hands. "Isn't she the one who inspired those new holes in the wall?" Mrs. Hudson asked, setting the tea near Sherlock.

John smirked to himself where he was, typing on his computer at the table. His back was to Sherlock, but Mycroft did catch the subtle smile.

"No," Sherlock countered.

Mrs. Hudson laughed—a tinkling happy little sound. "Oh I think it was. She had him in a mood all day and I was told it was because she fed him his own medicine," she had her manicured and painted hand out in front of her doing gestures as she spoke. "Good for her, I say. She stayed here one night and I only knew of her the next morning because Sherlock hardly ever tells me when these sort of things happen and—"

"Mrs. Hudson, shouldn't you be off baking something?" Sherlock discourteously disrupted.

The elderly lady made a noise close to a gasp and a lip smacking. She turned and walked to the door, "Oh I do wish she would've stayed longer. I would've loved to meet her. Poor thing looked so exhausted—" Mrs. Hudson kept talking to herself well out the door, but Sherlock and Mycroft had long since tuned her out.

"Did she already tire of your incurable insolence and request a new assignment?" Mycroft inquired. He swayed the hook of his umbrella back and forth as if keeping time with the seconds.

"Why this sudden interest?" Sherlock made a face, "Why would she matter to you?" He swung his violin bow at his older brother across from him, using it as a pointer.

"No reason."

"Yes there is. There definitely is. Tell me why would the British government care so much about one person?"

A wry smile settled in the crook of his mouth. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"No. That's why I'm asking you to tell me," Sherlock replied sarcastically, swinging his bow around some more. He rested it at an angle on his shoulder and tapped the foot he had in the air a few times.

Mycroft inhaled, his eyebrow arching, and brought his umbrella forward and between his knees. He leaned on it and simply stated, "I quite like this one."

"_Like?" _Sherlock scrunched up his face. "You don't like anything besides your cake!" he exclaimed disbelievingly. Then Sherlock lowered his voice, "And bossing me around, but we won't get into _that _topic."

Mycroft deadpanned and was overcome with the extreme urge to whack Sherlock upside the head with his umbrella. "I won't say it again, Sherlock."

Now, Sherlock glanced to the ground, and then met Eve's eyes once more. _Ga-thump. Ga-thump. Ga-thump. _He counted no less than three heartbeats before he replied, "I wish to know more." _Ga-thump. Ga-thump. _"I'd like you to teach me."

Eve considered his words. Her jaw clenched thoughtfully and her brow drew closely over her eyes. They stood together, staring and waiting. Eve took moments to contemplate. After a while, she said, "Alright."

Sherlock was surprised she accepted to be his mentor so readily and without any further questions.

Eve unfolded her arms and pat herself down, looking for something. "Oh," she reached for her jacket on a nearby barstool. Eve took out her cell phone and dialed a number. Then she paced about the room, the phone to her ear, and fiddled with the fabric of her unbuttoned flannel shirt. She always wore flannel or plaid with a white vest top for some reason.

Eve's whole manner changed in a blink of an eye. "Dean, hey. Are you and Sam at the bunker?"

Sherlock heard a voice answering but could not decipher separate words.

"Alright, no, I just wanted you guys to look up something for me. Some urban legend here that might've spread from the U.S. Nah, I got it here. Just tired from research. Alright, hey, you two doing okay? Alright, yep, bye." Eve hung up and shoved her phone in her pocket.

"Rock n' roll," Eve said, turning to Sherlock. "Leave your phone here. This is serious shit that I'm showing you and I'm in serious shit if my brothers find out I brought a guy home."

Sherlock eyed her as he set his phone on the counter. Eve must have just lied to Dean—whatever for, Sherlock did not know.

"It's nothing against you," Eve insisted, walking into her room. "Where I live is—well, you'll see. Plus, Sam would probably go all Big Brother on you and Dean would have a freaking pasture." Eve came back holding a small round bronze container. It looked as if it would hold sweets, with its ornate lid and side handles. But as Eve lifted the lid, it was apparent it wasn't used to store grandma's eighty-year-old candy. Inside, was a finely ground powder the color of sand.

"Okay, come here," she instructed, "and stand close to me."

Sherlock was apprehensive and the skeptic inside him squirmed, but he stepped forward. They stood together, the wool of Sherlock's coat against the fabric of her blue and green flannel. He watched her heedfully, taking in everything that was happening.

Eve tucked the bowl-like container close to her and put in a hand. She scooped up some of the powder and gave Sherlock a grin. "Hold onto your scarf."

Then, she threw down the sand and it hit the ground with the noises of a bunch of tiny rocks. The floor was taken from beneath them and suddenly, they were falling. Only for a second, they were lifted or floating or weightless in nothing. The sensation was new and alien to Sherlock. Then, as quickly as it had disappeared, the floor returned to its proper place beneath his feet.

"Welcome to the Men of Letters shelter," Eve said, taking a few steps forward, "Everything and anything you want to know will be found here."

Sherlock looked down to his shoes. He was standing upright and his legs were keeping him standing. That was a good sign, but…He took a step—oh good, he could still walk.

"Men of Letters?" he questioned under his breath. He took a look around the room. They were in a room centered around a table with a map inlaid in it. The table had several chairs surrounding it and it looked as if it had the ability to light up in numerous areas. There were shelves and pillars and lamps. There were various curious objects and old machinery along the walls. The room itself resembled a bomb shelter but it also resembled a library. They must be underground…

"Yep," Eve said, walking backwards, leading him gradually about the room. "They're all extinct. What you see here is the last and largest collection of everything we know about all of the world's ugly spots. The Men of Letters collected and chronicled it all and stored it here." She stepped up into another room. This one more closely resembled a library. It had more shelves and twice as many tables and lamps and artifacts.

"Dean and Sam are what you call Legacies. I am the first Woman of Letters in a long time and really none of us should be Men of Letters. Hunters are considered trash to them, so I kind of find this as a big screw you to those arrogant bastards. They're probably spinning in their graves right now." Eve smiled at the thought of it.

"I assume it was a very discriminatory organization then?" His voice was low. He couldn't put enough of himself into it because he was too deeply intrigued with where he was and how he got there.

"Definitely. Way back in the day, very few people out there were members and an even fewer amount outside of the group knew they existed. Dean, Sam, and I are the last. You can count Cas too, but he doesn't like the title. The Men of Letters didn't like pretty much everything that wasn't human and that means Cas included."

Sherlock peeled his eyes from some maps on the wall. "Didn't you say Castiel was your brother?"

Eve smiled, her eyes shining with an unnatural luster. "Family doesn't end with blood." Eve pocketed her hands in her jeans, "And my family is a bit complicated. Anyway, where do you want to start?"

Sherlock thought. Everything he learned with this woman alone made him take a new perspective. Sherlock always thought he knew all that was needed to be known, but after all this indisputable evidence, it truly knocked him off his high horse. Sometimes a ground level view was the best one. And from this day on, he'd strive to learn as much as he could about this infinitely more tangled world. He would trust Eve.

"Demons," Sherlock answered.

"Follow me," Eve said.

Eve took him to the bunker's library and there, they spent a couple of hours. Eve taught him everything she knew. They sat at one of the tables, books of all ages and from all ends of the Earth stacked and piled and left open around them. She showed him antiques and artifacts and old journals.

Sherlock had unlimited questions and Eve answered them all. When he inquired about ghosts, Eve gave a quick synopsis, "Ghosts stick to one house or building…" and then she would go into excruciating detail. She did this with every not-so-fictional being he asked her about.

After a long time, Sherlock asked to see everything they had on Cyrus Sloan. Eve sat back and exhaled. She grabbed her beer from the table and said, "I'll be right back."

Then she went through a large doorway and turned down a hall. She went deeper into the bunker, sipping her alcohol, and wondering which file she should bring back to Sherlock that would reveal the smallest amount of information about her as possible. She sort of already showed him her grace—what little bit was left of it—and she knew after seeing Nate and Cas, Sherlock could put two and two together, but…He hadn't asked about it since the last time she saw him. Maybe he forgot. Or maybe his 'mind palace' was in such an information overload that he couldn't keep it stored on his hard drive, or whatever he called it. Anyway, Eve could always forge something that sounded nice. Sherlock didn't have to know she was the closest thing to God.

Eve turned another corner, set her beer on a table in the hall, and opened a door. She reached for a light switch and flipped it on. The room lit up and the lights above her buzzed with electricity powered by old-school generators. Metallic shelves were on either side of the room and went forward where the two sides squared off, making the room seem a lot smaller than it really was. Eve was about to move for one of the boxes on these shelves when she heard a voice.

"Well, well, here's baby sister. Back from London so soon?"

Eve walked forward, her face set. She pushed on the shelving in the rear of the room with both hands and it opened to reveal a demon tied, handcuffed, and chained to a chair in the center of a demon trap etched onto the floor. The demon smiled vindictively, his eyes flicking to a solid black. He chose a redhead balding man in his thirties, who was wearing a Walgreen's smock and Reeboks as his vessel. He was also lanky and small and had a weirdly shaped head.

"Who are you? When did you get here?" Eve's voice was hard. Hunting mode: On.

"You mean when did you moron brothers storm my mansion and drag me to this shit hole? A few days ago probably, seeing as I can't actually fucking tell being down here in this smelly dark crapsack."

"Alright buddy, I'm about two seconds from shooting a bullet into your kneecap—"

"Go ahead, princess. Assuming you have the balls."

Making her signature 'done with this crap' face, she grasped her gun and shot him clear through the knee. The operation was so cursory, so practiced, it was fearsome. The demon should've taken her warning seriously, but instead, it bent over best to its ability (being chained to the wall hindered mobility superbly) and let out an amplified yelp. It gasped and then laughed through the pain, looking up to Eve.

He said, "You know, you are a lot like Dean. I can hardly tell the difference."

"Shut up," Eve scrunched her nose and weighed her gun in her hand. It was no longer comparable to an instrument used in conflict. It was a detachable part of herself. It was like a batter's bat or a construction worker's hammer. It was herself, condensed and projected into a handheld object. One she has used to kill many, and will use many more times in the future.

"Now tell me who you are before I take out your other knee."

"It stings a little bit," he laughed, sucking in air through his barred teeth.

"Yeah it does. Fashioned the rounds from angel blades myself."

The demon made a face and gave a tiny shrug. "Not bad."

Eve lifted her gun, aiming for the demon's other knee. "Talk."

The demon jerked back, putting up its hands in feeble attempt to protect itself. "Okay, okay. Whatever you say. My name is Cohen."

"_Cohen?_ What kind of a name is that?"

"A very popular one for Jews!" The demon fondled its knee, careful not to touch the supple wound. His pant leg was dyed with red.

Eve dropped her arm, "You're kidding me."

"No, I'm n—"

"Wow," Eve said flatly, re-aiming her gun, "I don't care."

The demon quieted, swallowing its words.

"Tell me why my brothers have you here."

"You mean they didn't tell you?" The demon giggled, "Your family is all kinds of screwy isn't it?"

Eve interrogated, "What do you mean?"

The demon stopped chuckling and tilted its head at Eve, evil, intent on instilling fear, with a pinch of annoyance in his face. "I'm one of Cyrus' followers. I carry out his orders and get done all that needs to get done."

"So why didn't Sam and Dean hose you when they got the chance? Why did they lock you up here?"

"If you're so close, why don't you ask them?"

Eve angled her arm and pulled the trigger.

The demon yelled out a few times, the veins in its neck protruding. It realized quickly that she only shot the chair leg to which his own leg was tied. The bullet left a semi-circular hole through the wood and also left splinters poking out of the chair. The demon remained upright in the chair because she deliberately left a majority of the chair leg connected to the rest of the structure.

"Jesus! Okay! Okay!" the demon blurt out; giving in. "They're searching for the manual."

Eve's expression transformed into something difficult to read. Feelings of fear, betrayal, worry, and anger all prospered congruently within her. "The manual?"

"Did I stutter?"

"Why are they looking for the manual?"

"For you, obviously. Dean's obsessed and Sam's just flat out furious. It's like they've come down with an illness or something. They feel awfully guilty and Deanie drinks and drinks and drinks until he can't feel no more," the demon pouted. "In my opinion, Sam is worse—" the demon glanced up at Eve, seeing his words having significant impact on her.

Eve did not know how to take this. Dean and Sam swore they'd never try to track down the manual. It was a death wish. They promised her.

"Those boys are very impulsive when it comes to those they care about," the demon went on, "It's a characteristic all you Winchesters have, I've noticed. Very impulsive. Very stupid. They'll be dead long before they can get it."

Evangeline snapped back to the demon. Her gaze was savage and stormy. "Says who?"

"Cyrus. Because it is with him, you know. Loves that thing. A perfect little fairytale to lull him to sleep at night."

Eve grit her teeth. "Demons don't sleep."

The demon shrugged. "He's just waiting for the right time to use it, I guess. I don't know, I'm not high up enough in the ranks for that type of intel."

"The right moment?" Eve whispered, glancing around the room.

"Yeah, hey. What day is it?" the demon asked.

Eve narrowed her eyes and said, "November twenty-ninth."

"You'll find out soon. The countdown has started."

"Countdown? What countdown?"

"Ah…" the demon gave her a sly look and let its mouth hang open for a smile.

At that moment, Eve gasped and her gun slipped from her fingers. The gun hit the ground with hard clicking taps before it settled still, flat on its side.

Her right forearm felt as if it was pressed against a hot stovetop. Her skin was ripping and the sounds of her flesh splitting down her arm were a sweet symphony to the demon. He smiled as blood poured down her arm and as she let out noises of agony. Eve's skin unzipped and scathing pain seared all throughout her arm. She clasped her bleeding limb in her other hand, trying vainly to stop the bleeding. It just kept coming. Then she noticed what the markings were doing. They were forming a picture.

The lines dug into her flesh as if a scalpel was drawing them there. They twisted, twirled, zigzagged, and dotted, coming together and swirling apart. The drawing was intricate; it had feathers—no, it was sketching entire wings, and…it formed a bird. It was in flight, with its feathers spread and tail sailing behind it. It looked how a bird would to someone from the ground. But the drawing wasn't done just yet. Just below the picture, the sharp zinging continued until the number ten was completed.

Eve gasped and held her arm. She whimpered, the pain engrossing her every nerve. Blood was everywhere—on the floor, on her clothes.

"Cyrus sends his regards," the demon told Eve.

Eve shouted, "Sloan freakin' Umbridge'd me?"

"What does that even mean?"

"Why is he doing this?" Eve yelled, picking up her gun with both hands. She held the weapon steady, despite the wounds screaming bloody murder in her arm.

"Because he can, but it's anyone's best bet."

Eve's lip twitched and there was a heat growing. She fired. The demon died on contact, the yellowish light within the vessel flashing in and out momentarily. Eve lowered her gun into her left hand and stood to her full height. Seeing the hole through the demon's heart and welcoming the familiar rush of a kill, she knew what she just did was the most brainless thing imaginable. Dean and Sam would come back to find she'd been there. No one else could get in the bunker—not even Cas. You had to have the key or the spell Eve had used (the Men of Letters were skillful in the art of spell crafting and after much digging, Eve had come across a loophole in the bunker's defenses).

Taking a deep breath, Eve turned to leave.

Sherlock had heard the commotion and went to investigate. He'd been standing in the doorway for who knows how long, and at this sight, all Sherlock could do was take her in. Blood stained the stomach of her vest top, where she had held her arm against her stomach at one point. She stood with her wounded arm by her side and her other arm crossed over her midsection to hold the other by the elbow. Her right arm was scrolled with markings. More blood flowed down from the scratches gouged out in her skin in long rivulets, curved with her long fingers, and then dripped off the ends of her fingertips. There was a gun in her other hand and a fearful vulnerability in her eyes. She looked down, not knowing what to say. Her hair obscured her face from him.

"Eve, are you alright?" Sherlock asked gently.

"How much did you see?"

"Are you alright?" he asked again.

"I'm fine," she brushed him off. Her eyes were lifeless and apathetic. "How much did you see?"

"Enough," he answered. The word lingered on his lips after it had been spoken, and his tongue held much more back.

Eve averted his stare. She walked passed him, gripping her ailing arm with her left hand. Sherlock let her pass without word.

****Please review and tell me how you're liking it! Tell me your favorite part? Happy reading!****


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten:

"John, could you come here a moment?" Sherlock called, letting his level voice travel up the stairs.

He and Eve stood at the base of the steps, having just used the dust powder to travel back to Baker Street. Eve did not want to spend any more time at the bunker after her confrontation with the demon.

Sherlock prevented their advancement into the flat by closing off Eve's pathway to the stairs. He had her arm in his hands—one hand behind her elbow and the other gingerly supporting her wrist. His eyes dashed across her wound in the microsecond that she permitted before she yanked her arm away from him.

"What do you need?" John came to the top of the stairs and his eyes sank to Eve. His expression changed on sight and it was as if someone just gave him some grave news. "Good God, what happened?"

Eve stepped up the stairs, holding her arm. Really, it just felt like a bad sunburn at this point. She looked at John as she passed him, "Cyrus happened."

John gave Sherlock a look, needing an explanation, but Sherlock only pressed his lips together. John went in after Eve, leaving Sherlock a fraction of a moment to think. He blinked and rubbed his thumb against his fingers. Then, he propelled himself up the steps. Sherlock walked into the kitchen, seeing John hover over Eve as she cleansed her wound at the sink.

"Let me help you," John pleaded. By his wired gait, he was prepared. His arms were near hers in case she should fumble, were willing and ready, yet inched back at her refusal.

"I got it. I know how to do this, I've done it before," she waved him away.

"Alright, I understand," John rolled up his sleeves, "But so long as you have people standing by to help you, let them. Give me your arm."

Seeing she wasn't yielding to him, he urged again, "Let me take a look at it. Eve, give me your arm."

Sherlock loitered by the door, watching the two interact. Eve wanted them to really back away from the traditional save the damsel in distress response, and he saw that. He also saw a profusion of emotion underneath her tough mask. He saw John; how close he stood next to Eve and the gentle candor firmly applied to the grooves of his face.

Eve pressed herself against the edge of the counter, barring tears from passage. Her arm did not hurt so much as her heart, but she'd continue to let John and Sherlock think the pain was concentrated in the flesh. "It hurts," she exposed at last. She let her hand lower and it was as if her strength was drained from the limb.

John glanced at her, reaching for her arm. "Yeah, I know. I know," his voice eased her to him. Very attentively, he flushed her lacerations and dressed them.

When he was done, Eve held up her arms to look at them. Now they both had bandages—one she had to blame herself for, but the other's fault rested solely with Sloan. Her arms went back to her sides and she said, "Thank you."

"Any time," John responded, putting away the large first aid kit (and really, it couldn't be called a first aid kit because it was an assemblance of materials from the hospital, not the piddly boo-boo stuff you got from a Wal-Mart).

For a time, they all stayed mute.

"Could I—"

"Yeah, yeah," John said, "Of course. Take mine." He had his arms doing motions with a balled up towel in his hands and a faint smile on his face.

"Thank you," Eve breathed. She went to John's bedroom to lie down.

John watched after her as she walked away and then took notice of Sherlock across the room. They had an entire nonverbal conversation with one look, because that was all that was needed. And when they heard the distant creak of John's door as it shut, John hastened around the table.

"What happened?" His whispers were harsh and raspy as he was unable to revoke his unrest at understanding he wanted to shout and the adverse knowledge that he couldn't for fear of Eve's detection. "She's been gone a week and suddenly she appears, with you, with her bloody arm mangled and torn apart! A bird, Sherlock. What is a bird doing scratched in her arm?"

Sherlock did not know. He didn't know anything anymore. John started flinging questions at him this way and that and Sherlock could not answer a single one. Not one. He and John were completely out of their element. Sherlock wasn't even sure he could depend on his senses anymore.

Then, suddenly, it nailed him right in the face. "Oh John I _knew _I kept you around for _something!"_ Sherlock pulled the doctor to him with both his hands positioned on either side of his head, covering his ears. "That's brilliant. You're brilliant. Absolutely. Brilliant."

Sherlock released John, accidentally pushing him back a smidge in his provocation, and ran into the living room. He left John befuddled as all get-out. John even smiled a bit in his confusion. He said, "I'm sorry, what?"

John's eyeballs followed Sherlock where he rummaged frantically through the miscellaneous items on his desk. He siffed through loose papers, bent down the open laptop to look behind it and put it back out of procedure. He moved some boxes and looked briefly inside.

"There's a pattern. It all makes sense now—fits together perfectly. Can't believe I've been so blind while it was right here beneath our noses," Sherlock rambled on, muttering under his breath. He sprang at the bookshelf behind him and groped hungrily through the scores on the shelf.

The concentration was extraordinary in Sherlock's clear-cut hawklike features. His mania episode came to a swift halt when his fingers brushed an open envelope lodged between some books he had on the top shelf.

"What pattern?" John asked, staring at Sherlock's back.

Sherlock looked at the envelope, still as a vision. Very subtly, a smile stole the crook of his mouth and he looked up, re-noticing John's presence in the room. He jumped down off the bookshelf and brought it back to John.

"Birds. Human, birds," Sherlock incited. "Here," he wrenched a photograph from the inside of the envelope and turned it over. After giving the object to John, he continued passionately, "Cyrus Sloan called her a bird. Now she had a drawing of one on her arm. Castiel and Nathaniel both have a set of wings."

"Because they're angels." John had only one guess as to where this was going.

Sherlock nodded, furthering his argument, "Now we both know she has these, these blades, and we saw a duplicate on Nathaniel's body. I suspect they are specific to angels. Something only angels carry. In retrospect, we have enough solid information to conclude only one thing."

John threw down his arm. Evangeline's picture crinkled as it went past his pant leg. He looked to Sherlock. "You don't think?"

"No, I do, which ultimately brought me to this conclusion."

"No," John shook his head, brow knotting together. "That's not right. She wouldn't have needed Castiel's help. I saw her, she was dead, and he brought her back. We teleported."

"Oh I don't know John," the detective narrowed his eyes, "Some people would go through a lot to keep a certain image if it really depended on it."

John shook his head again, looking down at Eve's photograph. "Wouldn't she have shown us? I mean she wouldn't make Castiel show us his wings if she had some of her own. Would she?" Then John closed his eyes, recoiling. "Clipped," he said.

"What?"

"Clipped," John said louder, "That's what he said—the demon said. Up on the roof when I couldn't move, the demon said her wings were clipped."

They were quiet as the realization blanketed over them. This was a weighty ordeal.

"Well," Sherlock clicked his tongue, "There you have it." It was as if his lively animatedness was socked in the mouth. Now he looked pensive and sad.

John slugged over to his seat and clunked himself into it. He set his arm on the armrest and held his head by his forehead. He rubbed that area, as if ironing out the wrinkles in his skin. John blew out air through his mouth. A second later, he dropped his arm. "No. No, she's too human."

Sherlock stopped crossing his arms and massaging his lower lip. "Too human?"

"You saw Castiel."

"Yes."

"He's too awkward. He doesn't know how to operate around humans."

"Now that's no way to talk about the socially inept—" Sherlock unwrapped the scarf from his neck and removed his coat. He put them away.

"No, I really think—"

"Yes, I know. You have a point, but we can't automatically speculate based on one example. It biases judgment."

"What are you saying?"

Sherlock stood next to the fireplace now, with his body positioned perpendicularly with the mantle. He raised his right arm to readjust the skull on the ledge. "There is a countdown," he stated.

John gave him a look.

"The demon made quite a show about it, so it must be something of import." He pivoted on his toe and dropped himself into his chair.

"Demon? What demon?"

Sherlock sat forward and told the story.

After it was all said and done, Sherlock's face played host to a lineup of faces—all of which were different versions of someone who tasted something gross. He swiped his tongue against his teeth and the roof of his mouth several times. Then he said, "It really is odd saying all this." He tipped his head to the side and blinked. "Just your normal everyday discussion," he added acrimoniously.

"Yeah," John huffed a laugh, "Demons and the supernatural. No one prepares you for this in primary school."

Sherlock smiled and they both started chuckling. The pent-up tension was finally at its liberation.

After a moment or two of resurrected silence, John said, "So," and let the word drag on, "What happens now?"

Eve didn't want them to know who she was, they knew that now. But why? Was she ashamed? Afraid?

Sherlock replied, "I haven't the slightest."

John took in his words, and he realized he had anticipated that answer. For some reason, it just made him feel worse.

"John."

"Hm?" He came obediently back from his thoughts.

"It's quiet." His eyes flicked to the ceiling.

"Of course it is. She's sleeping."

"A chronic insomniac who's just gone through a traumatic experience? The balance of probability is not in our favor," he said with a small mouth.

John looked to the ceiling, turned his head and listened carefully. "Yeah alright."

Both of them bolted for John's room upstairs. They stopped just short of the door and Sherlock pulled down the ends of his buttoned jacket. John cleared his throat and knocked.

"Eve?" John asked, "You in there?"

They waited. No answer.

John opened the door He gave a relieved sigh. The mound in the center of the bed, all tucked in and wrapped up in his comforter, could have only been her.

Sherlock was blatantly disappointed. He stepped into the room; John watched him with a bit of a curious 'What are you doing?' expression. Sherlock rounded the bed to its other side, and with one hand on the corner, tore off the comforter. Nothing but pillows and some of John's balled up jumpers were underneath. Sherlock looked to John. Then, he went to the only window in the room. The latches at the top were unhinged but the window was closed. He bent over and pulled up on the window, making it open. Sherlock ducked his head out and looked down and all around.

"She's a sprightly little thing isn't she? Climbing down pipes. It took effort." Sherlock remarked.

"We should look for her," John suggested.

Sherlock shoved the window down. "No need. I'll get my homeless network on the job. More effective and a lot less strenuous on the legs."

"Eve doesn't know about your homeless network."

Sherlock turned to face John. "Precisely."

* * *

Eve was several streets away by the time Sherlock and John noted her absence. A good distance from Baker Street, she slowed her pace and swallowed. She should not have left them alone, not while Sloan was here, making a spectacle of her. He could take them out at any moment, just for fun. Just to spite her. But Sherlock knew just enough to fend off a demon—maybe not Sloan, but a demon.

_Oh God. _There was too much going on. Sam and Dean were searching for the manual. It was dangerous. It was suicide. They would never find it. Last they heard, it was off in an auction. The boys didn't know where it was now. But she did—sort of. _They promised her they would never go looking for it. _It gave the reader too much power. Which is exactly the reason why Sloan had it. How else would he be able to make her a human Etch-A-Sketch while she was in the most thoroughly warded and highly protected buildings of all time?

That's right. The manual was her manual. The instructions on how to enter her mind and control her. She was a walking nuclear bomb and Sloan had the button to set her off. He had the key to taking over the world. She had no idea when he'd choose to use it, but he left her a hint. Ten. Ten what? Days probably. What happened in ten days that was so great? Sloan was not one to pick a random date—there was something else significant to it.

Eve needed help. This was too large just for her—without her powers, she couldn't take Sloan and his plans on. There was no way. But who knew how large this was? Who could she possibly turn to—one with eyes and ears everywhere at his dispense and knew how to defend against demonic invasions (if it came to that)?

Eve took slower steps. She removed her hands from her pockets when she had a revelation. She craned her head to look up, taking root in the cement where she stopped. In a trice, her gun was out—people shouted and scurried away—and she shot at a security camera at the top of a building. She tucked her gun away and sat on a bench below the out-serviced camera. Eve waited.

Soon, some cops came and handcuffed her. She cooperated and let them take her weapons and seat her in their police car. They took her away to a jail where she spent a collective of twenty minutes on the floor with her back against the wall. When the twenty minutes was up, a guard came to unlock her cell with a man in a black suit who waited on the other side of the bars for her.

He stood with his hands together in front of him and a rather incommoding essence to the flat line she assumed was his mouth.

"Nice to see you again," Eve got up and walked toward him, "How are the boys?" She gaped, grinning wildly.

With a blank (and highly amusing) expression, the man in the suit responded, "You managed to reapply my Chryptorchidism so I would very much like to return the favor." A second later he added, "Miss," to complete his sentence. It injured his pride to have to be polite to her.

"Sorry bucko, but I don't have the parts," Eve replied, frowning excessively. She was getting a kick out of this.

The guardsman shut the cell door behind Eve and showed her and Mycroft's adjunct out. After retrieving her possessions, she went for the door. Another one of Mycroft's men had a car waiting for her outside, to which she also got in without trouble. It took her beyond what she recognized (but soon retained) and dropped her off at a white upscale residence. The gates surrounding it alone must have cost a fortune.

"This way please," the man in the suit ushered her through the front door. "Wait here please." He left her in the entry hall and disappeared down the way.

Eve regarded the place with her sturgeon face. It was all so neat and polished. Even the decorative paintings on the walls seemed shiny. That vase over there looked Chinese and the rugs must be Persian. Maybe he was a collector.

The man came back a moment later, "Mr. Holmes will be seeing you now." He held out an arm to show her the way. Down the hall, he shut the door behind her and took himself out of the room.

This meeting was strictly confidential.

Eve found herself in a grand office. Bookshelves were built into the white walls, crown moldings iced the top of the room, and large arched windows were on one wall with their curtains drawn. There was a desk large enough to sit six people comfortably in the middle of the room and had two cushioned chairs angled toward it meant for visitors.

"Do make yourself comfortable," Mycroft said, taking his eyes from a small blue book in his hand. He closed it with that hand and walked from the middle window to his desk. Mycroft set the book on it and took a seat in his overly large chair.

Eve followed him to the desk and sat in one of the chairs in front of him.

"You took out a security camera just to get my attention. Now you have it." Mycroft's voice and bearing was punctual. He folded his hands, interloping his fingers on top of his desk, and leaned towards her. It was as if he had to cleave something of importance out of his schedule just for her. He did seem irritated. But that was also him 99% of the time otherwise.

"Peccadillo," Eve said.

He made a face, displaying his unspoken 'That's true' and leaned back in his chair.

"I want to know what you know," she said, flying straight into it.

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, only slightly surprised by her forwardness.

"About me. About what I do. How come you know about all of it?"

"It's not as big as you are trying to make it, that—"

"I doubt it."

"About a year ago I arranged a meeting with the ambassador to South Africa. When I arrived, he and all the men with him were dead. Their bodies were punctured and shredded as if they were attacked by a pack of wild animals. Can you recall the incident?"

Eve shook her head. "I was in Michigan," she said as if it was a perfectly logical excuse.

"That's because the American government kept it from the public—even paid me to keep quiet. They couldn't explain it. The doors were closed and windows locked. Optimal security. Something that large could not have gone undetected before it reached them. So—"

"K great, so you took matters into your own hands. Big deal."

He got out of his chair and took a few unhurried steps toward a bookshelf behind him. His eyes grazed over a marble bust at eye level and he said, "I found a lot of interesting tidbits of information."

"Such as?"

Mycroft turned, "Your reputation precedes you."

Eve still had an unwavering stare.

"You were taken into custody in Arizona after stabbing a woman a while back. The cameras in the vicinity aided your capture—perhaps a mask next time?"

Eve nodded sarcastically, her arms crossed. _Yeah, I'll get right on that._

"You escaped an hour after they interrogated you and cataloged your fingerprints…"

_"Hi, yes, can I get a little more of a flattering light? It's just, my complexion." _

_ The camera flashed, making Eve blink._

_ "Much better," Eve said flatly._

_ "Turn," the cop behind the camera ordered._

_ Eve rolled her eyes and gave them her profile._

"Yeah I remember," Eve told the elder Holmes brother. She was nineteen at the time.

"How did you escape?"

"Pick pocketed the police for the keys."

Mycroft smiled. He knew something she didn't. "Not this time. Prestidigitation isn't needed when you can unlock the door with your mind."

Eve was silent.

"Now, before you ask me what you really came here for," Mycroft came around the desk. He leaned back on it to show he was not afraid of coming close to her. Of her in general. "I require a bit of leverage…I would describe it in a different manner to make it sound agreeable, but I think we both know sugarcoating will not make matters easier."

Eve looked away, her eyes glassing over with anger. She knew exactly what he wanted. "You are asking a lot," her voice shuddered.

"If you want my help—"

"You've already helped me. I dropped through a roof and not a word of it in the next day's paper."

"Think of it as a free pass." He let her think on his words.

Eve stood as the gravity of her next action came to her. She walked to the center of the room, took a moment to look at a large painting on the wall, and then faced Mycroft Holmes.

The lamps in the room flickered and dimmed. The room seemed to alter. Two large ossified featherless wings unfolded above her head. They appeared mechanical almost without their feathers, like the metal arms of a robot. They were scarred and jagged, and stretched toward the ceiling. Eve balled her fists, lowering her head and eyes to the floor. She did not stand to her full height. Every part of her wanted to reject what she was doing.

The lights came on again and she folded her wings. The image of them vanished from the wall.

Mycroft shifted, trying to hide how viciously unprepared he was for that display. "Now…"

* * *

Eve did not now where she was by the time dinner hour came around. After she left Mycroft's she navigated the city by herself. She had much to absorb into her conscience and what better way to do that then with a drink? Eve entered a pub at the corner of the street and opened a tab.

The sun was setting and the day seemed to slow as it said goodnight. The nightlife boomed and stirred the sleepy city awake, not quite ready to rest its head. When the pub got too crowded for her, she set her cash on the bar and left with her last beer. She realized just how much time had gone by when she stepped outside. Street lamps only lit a certain area around them, giving the darkness a glowing halo of light every eight yards on both sides of the street. Shadows touched everything. Buildings were cloaked and faces obscured.

She was standing on the curb with half of her feet hanging off it when a man pulled alongside the pub on his motorcycle (well, it looked like a dirt bike more than anything, but she could tell it had a lot of work done to enhance its look and ability). As he put his kickstand down, Eve had an idea and she set her beer bottle on the curb a safe distance away from her landing pad.

He was close enough that she could get away with it. She waited until he took off his sleek red and black helmet and set it on his seat. He put his keys in his pocket. He turned to enter the pub.

Eve gave out a yelp, letting her heel slide off the corner of the curb, and aimlessly fell backward. She collided with the ground on her hip and made a face to seem embarrassed and injured.

The man came to help her instantly. "You alright?" he held back a snicker, "Had a bit too much to drink tonight, yeah?"

Eve nodded, taking on the 'tipsy' role. The man bent over to help her up and she sloppily got to her feet, grabbing onto him for support.

He smiled uneasily, "You want to come in with me? I could call you a taxi."

Eve hung on him a moment, keeping the facade going. Then she shook her head and slurred her speech just so, "No, 'tis alright. I live up the block. Flat's on the corner there." She pointed to the end of the street, placing all her weight on her own feet. Her British accent was very convincing.

"Okay, have a safe night," the man told her. He smoothed down his windbreaker and went inside the pub.

"Thank you," she said normally, when the door shut, trapping the man in blaring music and sweaty bodies desperate for a cure. She gave the keys to his motorcycle a gratified jingle in her hand. And when she was sure the man was too deep into the establishment to notice her as she stole his bike, she dipped down to get her beer off the sidewalk. She chugged some down and pitched it in a nearby rubbish bin. Then she put on the helmet, got on the motorcycle, and put in the key. She gave the engine a rev, kicked up the kickstand, and with a grin, soared into the night.

It was the closest to flying.


End file.
